Krait book 10a The Wolves of Prince Peak
by slytherinsal
Summary: In his first full year as headmaster of Prince Peak, Miss Cackls's Academy as was, Severus must face the machinations of Prince Gerhadt Grindelwald and ODESSA, which may prove less of a threat than gormless girls. Anyone pick up the Puddle Lane xover ref?
1. Chapter 1

_Having been asked to try to run both stories concurrently I've made a posting schedule that will hopefully have the same amount of time having elapsed with each post; which means playing catchup with one story or the other from time to time. Those who prefer to read one and then go back and read the other may want to know that the [a] designation is Prince Peak [following Krait and Severus] and the [b] designation is Hogwarts.  
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**Chapter 1**

Jade knocked on the door of the turret room that was the effective cell of the Odessa ex-werewolf Wolf Luytens.

"Herein" he said politely.

Jade went in.

The man rose.

He was tall with hawk like features not unlike her father's, but more Germanic in colouring, the tan a snow tan rather than the rather sallow features of Severus Snape. His hair was tow coloured and caught back in a ponytail; and one of his bright blue eyes was ruined by the vicious scar that cut, white and shining, all the way down the lefthand side of his face, a legacy from his making as a werewolf when he was thirteen by Fenrir Greyback. The other eye had enough small laughter lines and sardonic amusement to mark his nature.

"Guten tag, Herr Hauptman Lyutens" said Jade.

"Guten tag, Gnadige Fraulein" said Wolf.

He saw a slim girl with long light brown hair, loose for the holidays, a magnolia skin and eyes at first glance grey but with a kind of mutability of colour to them; the curious look she shot him tinged them with green fire. She was dressed in black leather trousers and a black leather vest. It seemed strange garb but it suited her.

"Austrians are so nice mannered" said Jade. "I'm Jade Snape; the only way to put this is baldly, I'm to be your jailor for the time being; has my father explained this?"

"Yes Fraulein Snape; also I will tell you as I have told him that I will not permit the fact of you being a woman to prevent me from trying if I might to escape."

She shrugged.

"No obviously not. I wished to discuss with you the parole arrangements you have with my father, to go out for exercise unsupervised twice a week."

"You wish to rescind that?"

"No I merely wished to check the details and remake the arrangement with you so there is no misunderstanding over such parole arrangements. As it is the holidays, and being between OWLs and NEWTs I have no holiday assignments I have much more time at my disposal than my father as headmaster of a school; I thought to offer an extra parole every morning for a couple of hours to run together. I have been accustomed to follow a strict regimen of physical fitness, I do not wish to go soft and apart from wishing company myself it would be churlish not to offer you exercise with a little company."

"Thank you; I should like to accept" he said.

"Have you taken animagus form as a wolf?" she asked "Uncle Remus – he was a werewolf, my dad's friend, one of the first cured – had the instincts of wolf and he found it comfortable to take it as animagus which gives him all the advantages of being a wolf but with his thoughts intact."

"I thought you had to be born an animagus?"

"Oh! No! Remus' friends all became animagi to be with him when they found out what his furry little problem was."

"That is loyalty" he was struck. "Furry little problem? That is the English understatement then."

"You did not have such friends at Durnstrang then?" Jade asked sympathetically.

He stared.

"I was not allowed to remain at Durmstrang; werewolves are ineligible!"

Jade gasped.

"Not allowed school? Allowed to be cannon fodder and die for the greater good but not educated in how best to defend yourselves in human form? GITS!"

He gave a bitter smile.

"Your father has shown me many things that I dislike about the system" he said "And a picture drawn by a small boy where erklings came into your forest….the picture of a wizard that I find hard to swallow."

"Why?"

"It was The Prince" he said simply.

Jade shrugged.

"Attitudes come from the top as often as not" she said. "You didn't even notice the irony in me using the phrase 'for the greater good', Gellert Grindelwald's infamous phrase. Like making muggle werewolves."

"That was not right" said Wolf "Muggles are not…cannot…."

"My father thinks the ones who survived to become werewolves were at least sensitives maybe low power magic wielders. We have found that there are degrees; you know when a black person and a white person have a child the baby is often brown; and two mid shade people can have babies all the way from white to black and any shade in between. Magic works the same way. And it can hide in levels too low to show for generations and then pop out in so-called muggleborn or mudbloods to the people over here. Rather they should be called revealed-bloods. But Hogwarts accepts anyone who can pass the test; we had there a child who was born werewolf; her father absconded. My brother Erich performed a blood sacrifice ritual to cleans her blood of the disease; it's from her the cure comes. She's coming here next term, she's a nice kid. Well, we knew that Durmstrang would not have muggleborn or half-bloods; and we thought maybe they could come here instead. Looks like we might be opening our doors to juvenile werewolves too, and helping them cope or curing them as they choose."

"Your father – your whole family – is remarkable."

Jade shrugged.

"We do what has to be done I guess" she said "Hows about the wolf form then? I don't mind trying it to run with you too" and she shrugged into a shaggy brown wolf, wagged her tail a couple of times and shrugged back. "Hmm yes, easy enough. Why are you looking at me like that?"

"You take so difficult a thing so lightly!"

"Meh, Transfiguration is my thing" said Jade. "You know a bit what changing feels like before you used to lose it; should be a piece of piss for you!"

With Jade talking him through it, Wolf had soon grasped the principles of taking wolf form. He had not wand of course; but the animagus transfiguration did not need it, especially not with clear step-by-step instructions as issued by Jade who had helped her own group through the transformation. He sat and huffed at her happily, his tongue lolling out.

Jade repressed the urge to do his ears.

She was wont to do Padfoot's ears because he had lived with them in dog form before she knew who and what he was and it was a permitted liberty; because he was a favourite uncle.

Doing the ears of a virtual stranger and one's prisoner at that was an unwarranted cheek.

And next morning they ran together on the mountainside; and the air was keen and the smells to a wolf nose delectable!

She changed back as they approached the castle and motioned to him to do the same; Severus had employed a goblin caretaker, the lugubrious Strang, who was less bad tempered than he pretended and was actually rather soft hearted – if anyone got to know him well enough to find out – but who would be a little disconcerted if a pair of wolves wanted to come into the castle.

He was to have charge too of the cable car Severus was having put in.

"The smells!" said Wolf "I didn't know I had such senses when I was in wolf form!"

"Remarkable" said Jade, falling back on David Eddings "It is something of a revelation; I usually do snake, family associations and all. I may just shift. Wolf's a lot more versatile than snake though sometimes poison fangs are useful" she grinned "Like threatening to bite first years with a poison that will make them come out in boils all over."

He raised an eyebrow.

"Could you? Temper poison like that?"

"Should think so. Mum can. Well, inside Hauptman; ten minutes of parole left."

It took Wolf a couple of days to formulate his plan.

When Jade next knocked and came in to visit him he jumped her from behind the door, holding her tightly to counter any form she might change into, relying on his sheer strength, taking her wand and covering her mouth.

"My deepest apologies Fraulein Snape for thus manhandling you" he said.

Jade had half frozen; she had been grabbed to immobilise twice since being out of the orphanage; once by Fenella Fenwick who had twisted her arm and once by Pritchard when Baddock was masquerading as her father.

This had not the same feel; there was no intent to harm. She relaxed against him and considered, noticing that his musky scent was rather pleasant. Having been a wolf seemed to leave some enhancement of the senses lingering.

Hauptman Wolf Luytens noticed the light flowery scent of Fraulein Snape's hair like sunlight on a meadow. He gritted his teeth and used her wand to make magical bindings. He gagged her gently with a clean handkerchief.

"They'll tighten to whatever form you turn into" he said "I've seen it happen on werewolves. Someone will come looking for you; I am sorry" he looked into her eyes, which were lavender-blue and….

Laughing.

And then his feet and hands felt odd; and he glanced down to find that they were CABBAGES!

The magical bonds fell away and Jade took off the gag.

The door shut with a gesture from her.

"I suppose that gives a whole new dimension to the French habit of calling people 'my little cabbage' murmured Jade and waved a hand.

He had hands and feet again.

"Sorry to inconvenience you" said Jade "But I have my duty too, to my father and to the safely of the school and the innocent children here. I know YOU would not attack little girls – and boys next year too – and I know too that you did not even know it was a school you were sent to as extra guards. But if you get away YOUR sense of honour means you will have to seek out your Prince; and his apparent lack of honour will make him use all the information he can wring from you to use against us and the kids here. So, I will do what it takes to keep you here. If necessary, for the children's sake, I will kill you. I do not want to; I like you. And you got one further across me than anyone generally has done before."

"I – I had not realised that someone so young could be so skilled at magic – soundless and wandless! Why I know no adult who can do that!"

Jade shrugged and pointed to the zig-zag scar.

"I didn't get that doing fancy work and reading Hans Christian Anderson" she said "I'm one of the group that fought Voldemort; just because I was underage doesn't mean I didn't manage to mix it with the others. We chose to lose our childhoods that others might have theirs. Sorry; didn't mean to sound grim. It just feels that we did it all to get rid of him and now we have to do it all over."

"I am sorry that it feels that way. I – I shall miss our morning runs."

Jade blinked.

"That went past me a little fast; you wanted to give them up? You do not strike me as the sort of person to throw a pet because I won our little spat here."

He stared.

"I – but will you not withdraw the privilege?"

"Of course not; why should I? You are under parole for the duration. Why should I suddenly doubt your parole? You warned me you would try to escape."

"Thank you for trusting me to keep my word."

"You, Hauptman, are a gentleman and a man of honour. Were all Odessa like you we should be looking to them as allies not as the enemy" said Jade.

He bowed his head; for to that he had no answer.

There was only one reason Wolf wanted to escape; to see how his daughter was. They would have told her he was missing, believed dead, in the cause of the greater good. She was a capable child, well able to take care of herself but he would have liked to have taken word to her.

Otherwise his durance was anything but vile.

The rooms he had as his gaol were roomy and comfortable, he had had a roaring fire over the winter, and was allowed books from the library. He was taking the opportunity to fill in the education he had lost to his – what did Fraulein Snape call it – his furry little problem. Had he only had little Irmi with him he would have been really quite utterly content; especially with long conversations with Severus, a man with as dry a humour as himself, clever and knowledgeable and worth listening to. And the conversations with the man's lovely daughter were humorous and deep, for she would drop in as her father was wont to do and just chat about this and that; as well as the joy of running through crisp dawn alpine pasture with her. He hoped that when school restarted she might find time to still visit occasionally….hard to think of her as a schoolgirl of what, it must be sixteen, rising seventeen. In this of course Wolf was mistaken, not knowing that Jade was a year ahead of herself; and not one of the older ones in the year at that. She had the self assurance of a young woman years her senior; and yet she could be such a child, as when she came dancing in one morning pirouetting around with joy to announce to him that she had eleven 'O' grades from her OWLs!

"And that's better than Hermione Granger!" said Jade "And it's wrong to gloat but she can be so – so THINGEY about her academic achievements sometimes; she tries not to be smug that she got seven 'O' grade NEWTs and mum got five 'O's and two 'E's but she doesn't always succeed. I shall mention it oh so casually to her when she comes to teach just for shits and giggles!"

Wolf was conversant with what OWLs and NEWTs were, the standards were comparable to German qualifications and could be offered as direct translations to most intents and purposes if job hunting with one set of qualifications in the other country's jurisdiction. Eleven OWLs were pretty good even without being of the top grade; rivalry over 'O' grades on any more than three NEWTs, even what sounded a friendly rivalry, seemed almost superfluous!

Jade bounded in an almost puppyish way on the mountainside that morning gambolling and chasing butterflies.

She did not SMELL puppyish however as she ran hither and thither instead of her normal sensible wolf-trot pace at his side.

Not that she ever smelled anything but attractive adult female wolf; it was just easier to ignore when she was being less….. flighty.

Wolf pulled himself into human form; and when she noticed, Jade did the same and came over to him.

"Is something wrong? Am I being too silly? I'm sorry" she said.

"No, I am sorry… I think if you do not mind it would be a good idea to run in future in human form. It – it will be better." He said.

She looked at him, eyes dark smoky blue and a little hurt.

"What have I done?" she said.

"Nothing" he said harshly. "I – I will extend my parole until we get back as it will take us longer in human form."

She was trying to catch his eye; he looked firmly away. He had the disconcerting thought that she could see too much.

"Do I smell too female wolf with the instincts all turned on in animal form?" she said directly.

He gasped.

"Yes" he said as bluntly.

She nodded.

"Forgive me; I should have thought of it. I will put together a non canine form to run if you like. It is not proper to be ruled by instincts; and besides when I am sought as a mate I want to be sought for in my human form. Besides I should think that wolves can't kiss" she added thoughtfully.

Her eyes were lavender and the pupils large; and Wolf fought with himself.

"Wrong mouth shape" he made himself say.

"And too many teeth" said Jade, grinning at him.

The moment passed; and they resumed the run.

Jade forced herself into the cold-blooded mode she had used to survive the orphanage.

Attraction was not love.

She liked Wolf very well. And he liked her. And he smelled nice and the thought of his arms around her when he had captured her was…..frankly arousing.

It was worth nothing until he trusted her enough to talk about his daughter; otherwise it was a mere descent into animal passions, strong, compelling, but ignorable.

She would be a black panther to run with him.

That would be more comfortable for both of them; and she would not get close enough to him in human form for poor human senses to breathe in each other's scent.

Besides it would be unfair to him; there were her NEWTs to consider and Jade was nobody's fool to consider the world well lost for love.

For Krait it had been different; in the precarious position both of Jade's parents had been every day might well have been their last.

If it was more than attraction it would last out her NEWT years.

If not….. she shrugged.

Jade was a very practical little person who knew how to keep the howling wolf inside as well chained as if with the chain Gleipnir.

One simply did not dwell on the thoughts that arose no matter how nice they made one feel inside.

So she concentrated instead on helping Wolf to catch up on his studies between outside excursions; persuading him to give parole to study outside in meadow flowers.

Wolf was grateful; both for the tuition and to her not mentioning the gist of the conversation that they had had. And to running with him in another form too, one that did not smell in the least bit attractive!

There was too the business of supervising the alterations to the building that Jade was overseeing on behalf of her father; and she asked Wulf to give his parole and come to threaten some of the goblin workers for her.

"I can jinx them into a ball quite well enough myself but then they'd never come back to finish the work" she said "Whereas they'd take it from a man. Absurd but there you are. And you are awfully good at looking intimidating, like daddy is."

Wulf grinned and willingly gave his parole for such a project.

The roof leaked and the single rooms were being knocked into larger dormitories, with ducts built to carry hot air from common room fires rather than have fires in the bedrooms. Severus knew far too much about what teenagers could get up to with fire to wish fires in bedrooms. They should have thickly curtained beds for warmth – and privacy for those who disliked a dormitory atmosphere – and plenty of warm quilts. Sixth formers were to have the privilege of having smaller numbers, two to four young people to a room, room mates chosen by friendship and also having studies attached. There were enlargements going on too, and the instructions to the goblin masons was to cut stone from the mountain side to make the approach even more precipitous to discourage visitors, at least on the final approach. Narrow pathways would lead down that were designed to be defensible; and the treeline well cut back to give early warning of any broom approach.

Wulf ran a practised and military eye over the alterations and said,

"Your father knows what he is doing."

"Professor Fraser – David – is mugglborn; as a child he wanted to be a soldier. He has taught us well" said Jade.

"He is something special to you?" it was casually phrased.

"Oh yes!" said Jade "He is like another brother though he is daddy's ward not son; he remembered his parents too well to want a father. Though dad is as close to a father as he has. He and his wife Ellie were glad to come here to help."

Wulf made no more comment other than to the dilatory builders whom he bullied very effectively.

"Thanks" said Jade warmly.

Jade did not show Wulf all the building works.

Unbeknownst to the masons certain sections of the new buildings were to become secret rooms and passages; and there were to be underground escape tunnels out, one of which exited through the well that Severus had sunk as a precaution in case the piped water from the mountainside reservoir became contaminated by outside agency or otherwise. Severus and Beloc planned to move the walls into their final positions once the builders had gone.

It was strange, reflected Jade, to be a marauder in charge of BUILDING secret passages instead of finding them!

Severus was also having sundry pictures on the walls of his office to give advice, wanted and otherwise. He had picked Phineas Nigellus who could be relied on to pour cold water over ambitious schemes, and to keep in touch with Dumbledore; and Prongs Potter just because, and to keep in touch with other marauders.

"Not Miss Cackle as a former head?" asked Jade when he returned a couple of weeks before the beginning of term to finalise the wall movements and hang the pictures.

"That silly old moo? I should rather think not!" said Severus forcefully. "She's done her best to ruin my poor girls already, I'm not having her in here to try to ruin them some more, whatever the amusement value of letting Phineas Nigellus loose on her!"

Jade grinned at that concept but nodded. From what she had heard of Miss Cackle she was likely to irritate her father enough that he would throw the painting out of the window.

She was pleased to have her family here again; and they would all run in the mornings, Severus raising a slight eyebrow at Wulf's presence.

"When the children at back at school, should you wish to continue this custom we shall have to discuss a tighter parole" said Severus.

Wulf clicked his heels.

"That is understood; indeed I hardly expected to be permitted to run if you had pupils along too."

"I would have liked to have offered you a situation as teacher of German and Germanic customs as we are to be a trilingual school" said Severus dryly "But to do so you would have to turn your back on one Fuhrer and accept me as your leader. That I will not ask of you."

"Thank you" said Wulf. "It is quite hard enough having to confront evidence that my Prince had not acted in a way that I like; I have no doubt there is some explanation but….."

Severus nodded.

Wulf was too good a man to waste on Gerhardt Grindelwald!

It was fortunate that Wulf's parole had ended and he was inside when the attack came.

Somehow Odessa had managed to scare up dementors; or else nordic fey as like dementors as made no odds, swooping suddenly from the sky on a surge of despair and terror.

There were dozens; Odessa certainly believed in grand gestures. And these would be the front guard with forces behind to take over; Prinz Gerhardt had not given up on the idea of ruling the school and so ruling the future.

They all had their wands out.

"_Expecto Patronum!"_ the voices of collective Snapes roared out to place the creatures at bay, to pick off one at a time.

Severus did a slight double take at his daughter's patronus as it rocketed out of her wand; it was a new one.

It was a wolf.

Severus permitted himself a brief raise of an eyebrow. He should have seen THAT one coming; Jade had been quite mopey at Christmas when she visited because everyone kept trying to pair her off with Fabian and she had declared that there was no way that she could marry Fabian because he was too easy going and she could bully him.

Presumably she felt that she could not, even as his jailor, bully Wulf Luytens.

Wulf was peering out of the window at the dementors, holding the bars Severus had put, staring in horror. Severus shouted

"WULF!" and threw his wand high in the air towards his captive.

He scarcely needed it himself after all; he could produce doe or snake at will without a wand, protected by Lily and Krait both.

Wulf concentrated; and caught it.

"_Expecto Patronum!"_ he cried.

His too was a wolf.

Rather a flirtatious lady wolf, Severus thought.

And then they were down to serious business with killing the creatures, using Krait's spell.

"_Ri-DE!_" rang out from the voices of Severus, Krait, Dione, Sirri, Beloc, Erich, Jade, Lydia, Seagh, Mimi, Tala – in Erich's care – and Lilith.

Severus did another double take, Lilith should not be on the battlements with such things coming in nor attempting to cast spells, why she did not even have a wand yet….

Lilith, scar blazing, had her finger firmly pointed on one of the dementors which was laughing and cackling its way to a noisy explosion of rending crepitant laughter.

"Gotcha" said Lilith calmly.

Lilith was eight.

Severus gave up.

After all, Jade and Lydia had been no older when they had been fighting evil.

Wulf caught on fast; and he was destroying them too.

They fell in numbers, were scattered again as surviving ones tried for a concerted attack with a pack wolves snapping at their…..well, where their ankles would have been if they had them, for Erich also seemed to have acquired a rather lupine patronus. Tala still struggled to produce one. Krait's knight-prince trotted beside a doe to stand and hold them back; somehow having the doe helped Severus to feel that the other marauders were there too. Dione also had a knight as did Sirri and they ranged themselves in serried ranks. Seagh's patronus was a highland stag; appropriate enough though it made Severus start for a moment.

Somehow there was something comforting in the continuity there too even though the boy was too much a loner to be a Marauder.

And then David and Ellie were there, apparating in to join the group, and Ron and Hermione, Ron landing with a bump as usual.

And it was all over bar the laughing.

For now.

Severus ran up to Wulf's cell.

"That was the advance guard" he said grimly "I'd not leave you without protection against dementors; they have no discrimination. They will now send in troops to mop up and place – they think – their own teachers in the place. They will rescue you if they win. You can either give your parole and make your escape as you see fit if we fall if you do not wish to be with them; or you can sit tight in here and wait to see if they rescue you or you are still our prisoner. Either way I want my wand back."

Wulf regarded him thoughtfully; though he handed the wand back.

"Severus, tell me truthfully, how much do you think they know about you and your family? The fact that your little ones go with you?"

"I have no idea. I make no secret of it. We came via railway; as far as the link goes, and by broom the rest of the way. I imaging they know that I have an indefinite number of children from babies to adults; after all, let's face it I have trouble keeping track at times."

"And they still send dementors" said Wulf. "I will give my parole; to observe, not to run. I want to see things from the angle you see them. I will not fight my people but I will watch them."

Severus nodded and laid a hand on Wulf's shoulder.

If, as was not impossible, he was family some day, he must be allowed to sort through his tangled loyalties in his own way.

Severus knew well enough about tangled loyalties after all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

The sturmzauberern on brooms burst out of the trees.

"Capture the girlchildren, they are pureblood Malfoys, they will do as breeding stock" called the leader.

"If you think you'd be likely to survive my little sisters you have such a triumph of hope over reality" said Jade quietly, half to herself.

"He's including you in that" said Severus.

"Over his dead body" said Jade grimly "I'm not a child, I'm fifteen!"

And that was a shock to Wulf, almost as much as the casual cruelty of the leader's expectations.

"And now" said Severus; and they cast themselves gracefully off the parapet – all the ones with the scar at least, and the boy Seagsron; Tala hung back with the smaller children, wand at the ready, and leaping on Lilith with an

"Oh no you don't!" as she tried to join her parents and bloodkin.

And they flew.

Really flew; not a hovering charm but flying, as well as though they had brooms; but how much more gracefully, controllably.

And there were bludgers in the air and they had conjured bludgeons to hit them with; and they were attacking the wizards on brooms, forcing them down, knocking them off, some to fall and break on the rocks beneath if they could not get a hovering charm off fast enough; and with a hovering charm they were held motionless, helpless.

And the spells they fired, green flashes announcing Avada Kedavra, did nothing. The flying Snapes ignored them contemptuously, and flew on, now attacking the sturmzauberern – some of whom, at the back were sturmhexen, whom the stormwizards seemed to be protecting, and who seemed to have little idea of how to fight, screeching if anyone swooped near them.

"You have no honour to attack women!" cried the commander.

"You have no honour to attack children!" said Severus coldly "And besides I see no women, only those who have sold their souls to Odessa."

"Crumbs what a wanker" said Jade "C'mon Lydia, let's put him under wraps!" and they swooped up smoothly either side of the leader, grabbing him by the arms and jerking him clean off his broom.

"Riding on a big white butterfly" sang Jade, who had discovered Status Quo at some point in Casimir Malfoy's CD collection., grinning as she reached the line, "Then I realised my butterfly wasn't really up there with me, we all make mistakes, forgive me…..Lilith my poppet, wrap him in silk and make him wish you were only an acromantula."

The older girls dropped the seething – and terrified – commandant on the battlements where Lilith proceeded to summon cords to bind him – another thing she should not be able to do – and stuck out a forked tongue at him.

"I wish you wouldn't encourage her in that" said Krait, nutting another sturmzauberern casually.

"She doesn't need any encouragement" said Jade "When he was planning on dragging her off to be raped as soon as she was old enough to bear sons for the umpteenth Reich for the greater good. We are going to kill them all aren't we?"

"Oh yes, but we didn't want to use wands on them; more humiliating. We'd better not kill the women I suppose, but they'll probably make hard faced Slytherin bitches look as soft as putty."

Ron was having great fun.

"I wish they'd let you play quidditch without a broom, much more fun – and easier!" he called.

Hermione just shook her head.

That was her Ron.

And the fight was over.

The smashed bodies of German wizards lay scattered across the mountainside; and Hermione and Ellie were busy rounding up the witches using stinging hexes like cattleprods. There were four of them.

Lilith was practising hexes on the commandant.

Currently he was green, exuding pus from the ends of little tenacles and covered in cactus needles. His teeth looked like a walrus and were pale blue.

"Enterprising" said Severus "A twist on the jellied furnunculus curse, avocado kedavra, densaugeo, the cactus curse and a few other things. You've been remarkably busy Lilith."

Lilith gave him an inscrutable look.

"I don't want to marry someone like him" she said "He's a creep. Zu bist ein gewanker" she added with wild guesswork at the prisoner.

"I think we'll leave the personal comments to the grownups now sweetie" said Krait mildly. "we have coarser German at our fully grammatical command with which to insult him. You need to study a bit more."

"Yes mummy" said Lilith.

They put them in separate cells in the dungeons – which Severus had retained for such a purpose – and left them for a while to stew.

Jade went to see Wulf.

He was sitting on his bed, with his head in his hands.

She knelt beside him and laid a hand on his arm.

He looked up; looked into her eyes; and then he was pushing her down onto the bed kissing her, hard, demandingly, even roughly.

And Jade was kissing him back, moving against him, breathing in the scent of him, pulling him against her.

And then she pushed him away.

He leaped back.

"Wulf…I can't….WE can't… not while you trust that bastard Gerhardt more than you trust me" said Jade, her voice raw.

Wulf rolled onto the floor and buried his head against her as she still lay half on, half off, the bed.

"I do trust you! Oh I trust you utterly beautiful Jade! I – I fear. And I suppose that I fear for my daughter's safety in the hands of Odessa if they knew I loved the enemy tells me all I need to know about the honour of the man I swore to follow and protect!" he cried.

Jade wriggled down onto the floor to sit beside him and draw his head onto her shoulder.

"Tell me about your daughter"

"Irmtraut – Irmi – is called for her mother. I fell in love with a muggle werewolf; she died giving me Irmi. She is everything to me… whatever else I did I meant to keep her existence a secret, oh Jade! Is she just so much breeding stock to them too?"

"I'm afraid she probably is" said Jade. "Exactly how old is she?"

"Thirteen….she knows how to use wolfbane potion, I managed to get a supply in for her….there's still a few months left of it. I thought she'd be safe, she is self contained, looks after me…."

"If we got her here to safety would you then tell us where to find her to rescue her?"

"Yes. Yes I would" said Wulf.

"Good; it will take a little preparation. There is an enchantment I wish to do for a quiet and secret approach" said Jade. "If they did any kind of divination they will know that you live; they may be watching her to see if you return to help her escape. They are always on the watch for that; we had Odessa agents who had infiltrated the German Ministry all over to find little Uschi Heinz when we helped her disappear so her brother could defect. Wanted to send in the German equivalent of aurors of all things! We haven't hidden you Wulf; perhaps we should have done. But you should stay out of questioning these females and the Major; though you are welcome to listen. We'll let David do it; he's quite an expert."

"He uses torture I suppose" said Wulf with revulsion.

"Then you suppose wrong" said Jade "Torture is self defeating; people in unbearable agony tell you what you want to hear. He just chats. I guess if we'd sicked him on you he'd have found out about Irmi; but you see dad didn't want to interrogate you; he liked you too well. And he knew you were hiding stuff and wanted you to choose to tell."

"Jade…" his voice was rough "I always wanted to tell you, but this is…. I am driven by a need that burns…." He had taken her hands and was holding them tight enough to hurt.

Jade made no sign of pain.

"Wulf, we are bigger than sheer animal lust" she said "And – and that is so hard to say when my blood howls for you. But it would also be wrong without Irmi being happy with me; how can I force myself as stepmother on a child hardly younger than me who has not had a chance to know me and accept me? I had trouble adapting to dad's second mistress – my bad, I know, but no less real – and now I know her I'm happy. But I'd also had time to get used to it. A whole year. Wulf, please, it HURTS as well as feels good but – but….." tears stood in spark-green eyes.

He nodded and stood in a single bound.

"You are right; and I the adult should be the one to have thought of that" he said.

"You are vulnerable and hurting" said Jade. "dealing with a total betrayal of trust is never easy, those that get it over and done with in our earliest childhood and can learn to trust again with a healthy dose of cynicism are perhaps the lucky ones. Dad knows what you're feeling though; he's been there too. Talk to him. I – I don't trust myself not to pull off my robe and lie expectantly on your bed; so I'm going now. I – I love you."

"I love you Jade" he said softly, firmly not looking at her.

Ellie and Hermione both wanted to get back to their respective infants; Ellie had left small Emma – named for David's dead sister – with Vasilica and Mungo, their adoptive children; and Hermione had stuffed small Penelope into Molly Weasley's arms as a side trip on their way. The babes would come to the nursery here of course under care of Sirri and her mother Mimette but they were not expecting to come out to Austria for several days yet! And David and Ellie too had a trip to Diagon Alley for the new year's text books for the older two, who were to stay at Hogwarts where they had friends. As indeed Lydia was to visit Diagon Alley for her new year's books for Lydia had no intention of deserting the Mad Marauders at Hogwarts unless her dad really needed her!

Severus had laughed and said that one lot of Marauders was quite enough for a small school and if he had one he knew he would have to have all; indeed he felt it healthier to send all the younger ones to Hogwarts anyway, because it would be a strain to have one's father not merely as a teacher but as the headmaster. Seag was different; Seag was a staunch little boy who firmly went where his adoptive father went, still adapting to being loved and still in need of that reassurance. This too was why Harmony Bloom and Tala Ulwin were to transfer; Harmony was Severus' ward but her devotion to Jade was such that it would be cruel to leave her in a class which had also lost Seag and Tala for Tala went where Erich went and needed as much reassurance as Seag. They were now of course the year below Jade, she having been put up a year; and they were the vulnerable ones.

Dimsie Burke had her vulnerabilities too, but she seemed to have settled into several friendships including with Heather Burns of Lionel's bloodgroup, through a shared love of cricket; and that group would see her all right even if she did not join them. And none of that year of Slytherin were truly awful; Victor Crabbe was a loner and his main intolerances seemed to be towards spoiled small boys – he had a much younger brother – and Marcus Collins disliked anyone who interfered with Marcus Collins.

Of those not loosely of his own family who had moved, Severus was grateful that the Black-Weasleys were sufficiently laid back to permit their son and daughter to go to different schools, though of course Lynx was quite capable of sorting herself out now anyway. Fabian was an only child who wore out and grew out of his uniform fast enough that new kit was no problem, something all the Marauders parents had noticed; and Senagra's father was a friend who just trusted Severus to keep his daughter safe.

The old fashioned uniform of Miss Cackles had HAD to go.

They were still in the sort of gymslips Myrtle had worn in winter with awful black and white checks for the summer.

Krait had suggested dryly that as the whole setting was very Chalet School, why not go for brown and flame as colours with cream shirts; and Severus had liked the idea. Winter robes were to be brown, summer robes were to be cream both trimmed with a flame piping – the order had gone in to Madam Malkin to be prepared – and in summer because of the heat they might wear loose robes without other uniform beneath. For outings he boys would have shorts and short sleeved shirts for the summer – shorts were not so old fashioned here – and girls would have a summer frock in their choice of flame, cream or brown. Winter was easy; long sleeved shirts in cream, skirts or trousers in brown and sweaters in brown with a flame coloured band. Ties were flame and brown striped and plain flame for the sixth. The parents of the original girls had been told that they might wear their original uniform until it wore out or was grown out of if they wished – Severus could see the point of the parents of new upper sixth girls not wanting to find a new uniform – so long as they wore the new tie.

Krait strongly suspected that every man-jack of the girls – if one could put it that way – would turn up in the new, far more attractive uniform having pestered their mothers into buying it. None of these girls was poor.

Which ruminations did nothing about interrogating prisoners.

"Herr Maior" said David "Your unwelcome intrusion has caused us some irritation."

The commandant sneered; or at least tried to. It was a rather sickly sneer.

He had been mostly unjinxed but he still had a few tentacles and a faintly greenish pallor.

"What do you intend by me?" he demanded.

"We rather thought that we might send you back to your Prince with a message old boy" said David "Along the lines of 'fuck off and die' though I believe we may modify the wording a trifle; he might need it put a little more bluntly because he doesn't seem very bright as he hasn't got the message yet."

"How dare you speak of my Prince like that!" he cried, leaping to his feet.

"SIT down Major" said David.

He was starting to enjoy doing that.

He went on as the major sat himself reluctantly down,

"How dare I? I dare because I am holding all the cards here. YOU are the prisoner. YOU are the vulnerable one. I am dominant; as we of Hogwarts and now of Prince Peak are always dominant. You and your pathetic Prince cannot win."

"Why do you call it Prinzhorn if you do not acknowledge Prinz Gerhardt?"

"What, do you think he is the only Prince in the world? Think again. We honour OUR Prince old boy. Yours is of recent stock; OUR Prince has descent of kings and a lineage hundreds of years old. Is it any wonder we despise a jumped-up line but three generations old? Gellert Grindelwald's English relatives are respectable enough of course but…..well it brings out all the well bred English blood snobbery in us laddie." Muggleborn David was rather enjoying doing a sneering English Oxford accent.

"Perhaps it is possible my prince and yours might come to an accommodation" said the major cautiously.

"Oh we intend this to be the case" said David lazily "The accommodation is, Gerhardt should behave himself and stay the hell out of our way. We might start getting irritated with him. And do remind him, old boy, that last time we got irritated it was with Voldemort. And Gerhardt isn't actually in Voldemort's class. He's a better leader; I'll grant you that, we never broke the werewolf captain, and respect is due there; but he hasn't the sheer raw power Voldemort had. He's not as crazy either; though that's a strength on Gerhardt's part. But he isn't even Gellert Grindelwald. Gellert Grindelwald we might have come to the negotiation table with; by all accounts he had honour. Gerhardt is an honourless pigdog whose concept of doing war on children disgusts. But you will not understand; you are yourself without honour or you would not have been willing to send dementors against children, nor would you be prepared to treat the little girls as brood mares. Do not for one moment think that the decision to send you back is in any way a compliment to you; it is not. It is because we do not want your presence contaminating our school, or even the prisoner of war prison in England. Nor will I soil my wand on you to kill you; I despise you too much. You will carry the message verbally and I will also give you a written communiqué for your inglorious leader. You have covered your self with much discredit; and you bring it all upon yourself. Good day."

Finishing with a 'where eagles dare' touch could not be passed up.

Working in the bit about not breaking the werewolf captain too was a protection for the man's daughter – Jade had passed on the news that he was willing to turn if his daughter could be rescued – until she was safe. Wulf had remained out of sight when Jade and Lydia had brought the fellow in, lurking within earshot.

Severus accompanied David out as though an aide-de-camp; he should have managed to legilimens everything they might need out of the fellow.

"I didn't get a lot out of him that we had not already got from the other prisoners in England as regards dispositions and camps" said Severus "We have them rattled though. And he is a frustrated and frightened man; that we fly almost broke him, as it is supposed to be impossible."

"Ironic" said David "Voldemort stood for similar things the German supremacists do; yet he despised them too. And it is his skill that we have to thank here for yet another thing to frighten them with. He's more use dead than alive but scarily he's doing his patriotic duty."

Severus laughed.

"Rather unintentionally! But I think it is time to press home some advantages and make them fear us enough to hold back, for I do not feel this is yet a good enough power base from which to attack. But we must let them THINK that we do. I think we should use the advantage that we have of knowing where their bases are to pick the forward base and drop our unwanted guests there; the unsubtle message of 'we know where you are and when we feel like it we'll do you over'.

"Tied, gagged and left right in the middle of the compound in the middle of the night to show we can infiltrate any time?"

"Yes; and our prisoners unconscious so they don't know how we got them in. We need to make true invisibility cloaks now Jade has worked out a formula."

"Whatever Malfoy gene it is that makes Krait and her special, I'm glad you're breeding for it" said David. "Lilith bids fair to be rather extraordinary too."

"It's a refusal to even learn how to spell the word 'impossible' I think" said Severus. "And we all have THAT to some extent."

Hermione and Ron were back – with small Penelope – to help make one or more invisibility cloaks.

"If there was only ever one made, isn't it going to be a rather complex artefact to consider even in the singular let alone the plural?" said Hermione.

"The complexity is the idea behind it, Hermione" said Severus "Once you understand how it works the rest is just a matter of sweat and chanting as you might say."

"Well we know about that from the elf-freeing ritual" said Hermione. "I hope it's not that level of sweat and chanting? It took me weeks to feel clean again!"

Severus laughed.

"Couple of hours; no more. It's based on feyspace. And because you're you my dear I can even get arithmantically technical."

"Going for a butterbeer now" said Ron hastily "Point me at the ritual later and tell me what to do."

Hermione laughed fondly.

Ron and arithmancy did not mix!

Hermione was quite blown away when the concept was explained.

"And JADE worked this out? Little Jade?" she asked.

"Hardly little any more" said Severus "She's studying NEWT level Arithmancy with you for the next two years you know; she just picked up her eleven 'O' grade OWLs."

"Oh" said Hermione. "Well, I must congratulate her."

Severus had not been able to resist the tease, knowing how peeved Hermione had been to drop to 'E' on Ancient Runes in her time; but he put a friendly hand on her shoulder.

"She did have a few less distractions than you" he said.

"No, not really; bumped up a year, fighting dark wizards in a foreign land….she's just good" said Hermione firmly.

Krait had questioned the four witches.

She had to admit that Gerhardt knew his business; they were recent graduates of Durmstrang and were none of them likely to be frightening or offputting to young girls. They were indeed to have taken up teaching posts; and one admitted that the fact that they were met by opposition was surprising and unexpected since they had been told that they were to expect a little unpleasantness in that there would be some bodies or a few hopelessly insane people including children, which was unfortunate but a side effect of war.

"And you considered the use of a dementer's kiss to steal a child's soul and leave them effectively a vegetable was a reasonable side effect?" asked Krait with sarcasm.

The one who had spoken paled.

"We were not told the means to be used; we were told such things were not our business. Our business was to teach."

The leader, who reminded Krait of the old Bella Black-Lestrange in her charismatic sneering self assurance tossed her head.

"What happens to inferiors is unimportant" she said.

"Dear me" said Krait mildly "Well as the losers you just said you don't think it's important what happens to you; wonder how you'd like to spend your days screaming on the inside and raped every nine months to produce a baby into the bargain? I wonder if I might arrange that for the four of you."

"Well if you feel like enacting petty revenge go right ahead" said the first one. "We will bear whatever you do stoically for the fatherland."

Krait actually almost liked her.

She had the same loyalty as Wulf with the same concealed shock at the realities of the leadership.

She did NOT like the leader.

The Leader, she had discovered, was called Erdmute Von Kessel and she almost deserved it.

She was a tall, good looking witch with long golden limbs and long golden hair, athletic in appearance and with the sort of charisma that could have charmed the impressionable and naïve young girls of Cackle's academy quite easily; and might even have had an impression on the more cynical children of Hogwarts; and she plainly knew how to use her charm and intended to do so quite cynically.

The one who had spoken out first, acknowledging defeat, was Nannerl Schwefel, rather an intimidating surname since it translated as 'Brimstone'. She too, as all of them were, was a good looking young witch and very Germanic in style. As such they had been picked no doubt.

Of the other two, both looked shrewd even to the point of cunning; and whilst they might be able to be turned with dedication, Krait could not really be bothered.

"I only need one to interrogate on your loathsome teaching methods" said Krait. "You" she pointed to Fraulein Schwefel "You'll do. The rest of you are superfluous."

"You do not have to kill the rest of us, it is possible we know things she does not!" said one of the other two sounding scared.

"Did I say I was going to kill you?" said Krait "You are civilians; I do not kill civilians. You will be returned summarily to sender. I don't want you near me; your filthy ideas make me feel sullied. You are not fit to have care of children. I despise the lot of you; and you are too insignificant to even want much information from, were I not curious about a school that turns presumably normal human children into subhuman monsters. Run back to Madam Bacsó and tell her we don't like her methods in English schools, we want no more of your effete elitist effluent. You will be taken from here to a place of er, our choosing and left to do as you see fit."

And she left them.

With Erich's house elves listening in.

Freiherr Von Strang had had quite a dozen house elves whom Erich had been training into more independence; and who had been in England when the compulsion was broken so they felt no urge to punish themselves.

The elves of Cackle's school had too been sent on sundry errands in England to make sure they crossed the boundary!

"You will want us to kill you of course, Nannerl" said one of the others, not the frightened one, though she was herself distinctly nervous. "They will torture you of course; we all know how it would be if it was the other way round."

"Amazing, Karin, that you know what I want" drawled Schwefel. "Are you so eager then to be tortured in my stead? I didn't know that was what jerked your strings."

The one called Karin reddened.

"I just thought… it seemed a good idea to leave them without one to question."

"Amazing! And I thought it was just me you wanted to kill; you'll kill us all then and find a way to take your own life – may I ask how? It's impossible to strangle yourself you know. We have been left in a moderately comfortable prison with no means to hang ourselves, no window to jump out of, nothing sharp. I have no cauldron to brew poison and even if you could manage a transfiguration on yourself to be a poisonous snake, snakes are immune to their own venom I believe. We have no wands so we cannot use any form of summoning to make a weapon. She wants one of us to question; whether she picked me because I had spoken as it seemed pointless not to, whether it was because I was on the left, because she didn't like my face or what I do not know. But her tone was offhand enough; do you think she cares which one of us she has? I mean, if you do get turned on by that sort of thing, feel free to volunteer to take my place sweetie, because I doubt they'd notice."

Karin glared.

"You go too far! It was just an idea, I had not thought it through!"

"No darling, you just wanted an opportunity to kill me because you like me even less than I like you" said Schwefel. "Because I'm not afraid to tell you to keep your nose out of my business even if you have got a boyfriend high up in the Prince's organisation. Oh but wait, he's a supply officer, isn't he, not some glamorous Odessa officer with blazing wand."

Karin slapped her hard.

"Ah, starting their job for them?" mocked Schwefel.

"Enough" said Von Kessel "Quarrelling amongst ourselves is pointless. We should be sure and have a cohesive tale to tell if we are to be let go; to try to understand what went wrong. Naturally the first wave – dementors or whatever – did not work as expected. And your duty, Nannerl, is to try to learn how that happened while they question you and either negotiate your release or act cowed and manage to escape. Out thoughts will be with your noble sacrifice."

"Not however your nerves to help with the cruciatus curse" said Nannerl, with a sardonic laugh. "One has to assume that what happens to the Dementors was that they were killed or destroyed."

"It is impossible to destroy Dementors" said Von Kessel.

"It is impossible to fly also" said Nannerl "I would remind you that they did that, too; even the very young ones that I would have thought might still be at school. These English do the impossible. And for that matter if I had children" she added "I would destroy dementors too if I could before they could even get close! WHAT was the Prince thinking of?"

"Winning" said the fourth. "It is immaterial the means used; for the greater good, the ends justify the means."

"Oh yes, tout out the party line Stefanie" said Nannerl "And just remember that it also means sacrificing us if need be. I will lay down my life for the Prince, but I would appreciate knowing when underhanded tactics are going to be used in the name of out glorious cause. What happened? They blew away the dementors, that's what happened, and then they didn't even bother to get their wands out to deal with Von Raute and his men; treated it as a quidditch game to demonstrate their contempt. We SAW Von Raute cast the killing curse again and again; some of us were still at school and saw how Herr Potter just ignored it. They are NOT normal humans."

"And one of them looked part goblin too! Disgusting!" said Stefanie. Nannerl gave her a look of disgust.

"You miss the point" she said coldly. "I meant that they have tapped some secret well of magic that gives them powers beyond what one might reasonably expect."

"You are overly melodramatic" snapped Von Kessel. "They have some skills we have not hitherto known. When the Prince has learned to fly as assuredly he will, he can soon put them in their place when he chooses to come personally."

"Oh was he not personally at the school when they first came and took his forces by surprise?" said Nannerl. "I must have heard wrongly. You must be realistic Erdmute; he will only defeat them when he can learn the secret of their power. By the way, you did not seem surprised to hear about Dementors; did you know?"

"Yes I was warned in case they were still about; to protect you three. It seems to me that these wizards were angered because they had lost some of their forces to the Dementors; or why would they have felt it necessary to have underage witches and wizards as part of their defences? They were weakened by it."

"Weakened enough to defeat us thoroughly"

"The number of dementors was obviously not enough; the Prince obviously was given incorrect intelligence on the numbers they had here. Next time, with stronger forces he will win. And then I will have my school!"

Nannerl Schwefel gave her a slow hand clap; and got slapped again.

Krait rubbed her hands together in glee when this was related!


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Wulf said to Severus.

"I will give you my indefinite parole; I will not renounce my allegiance to the Prince and swear to you until my daughter is safe."

"Understood" said Severus.

"I cannot understand why he would use such methods" said Wulf, helplessly.

"I have some theories if you will hear them" said Severus. Wulf nodded and he went on, "He was always reared as the prince, the heir of Grindelwald, the young Seigfried if you will; he is handsome and charismatic and from childhood doubtless had anything he could ever have wanted. He thought to join forces with – and doubtless expected to later dominate – Voldemort, and that plan was thwarted by, as it happens, Krait. He sought to regain favour with Voldemort by attacking Dumbledore using Huorns and I suspect that he either forgot or did not care that Hogwarts is a school full, as schools are, of children. The utterly selfish are often thoughtlessly callous. We drove them back relatively easily and Voldemort would have then laughed at him, if I know Voldemort. Which I do, far too well. So he consolidated in Germany and brooded on what he saw as his wrongs and watched. And Voldemort was defeated. At this point, two things go through his head. One, that Dumbledore has a power base that he can train up from childhood from his position in a school and two, that his grandmother has a twin sister who is a headmistress of a small but prestigious girls' school. That she had already failed once to take over. However, taking over Hogwarts would be even more spectacular; he does not trust Voldemort's word of how easily the huorns were defeated to he sends more. Only he can't get as many and adds his favourite werewolf troops to the mix with a couple of wizards too to oversee things. And that lot disappear too, without trace. He has people inside Durmstrang but he's not quite ready to buck several Eastern European governments yet by taking it over outright so he turns his attention to Miss Cackle's school, to the delight of his grandmother, because once in charge of one school he has greater access to information about other schools. Only Connie Hardbroom escaped. He sent hit wizards; and they believed that they had killed her and the six little girls….."

"WHAT?" said Wulf.

"There were six first years with her that she rescued; the killing curse was cast at what the Odessa hit wizards though to be them" said Severus. "Presumably they were ordered silenced. But she had already contacted us. It must have been a shock to Gerhardt to realise that there were wanded intruders in the school; and he escaped forthwith. Personally I'd lead and rally my troops but I guess the German psyche calls for all for one and one for himself. He alerted the troops that you were a part of to attack and as we did not find his body and he is still sending people to do things presumably did not lead in person there either. We killed everyone except you, as you know. Had I known that the wolftruupen leader was a man of honour I might have tried harder to keep the werewolves alive. I regret that; but it is done. A werewolf in wolf form is not a rational nor a benign being. For that, Hogwarts had to be punished, as I suspect was his reasoning; hence the erklings. As you know he came himself to watch. And ran away. Again. And then he laid plans that would enable him to take over here. It was no good taking over while I was out of the castle; for then I would still be master of the castle in absentia and the elves could legitimately come and warn me. He had to have me defeated so the elves would belong to the winner. A bit like wands. The timing was critical; when I was here with just my family before term began would be perfect. Or so he thought. Soften us up with dementers, filling the women with negative thoughts and fear for the children, hopefully the dementors would do the dirty work with their vile kisses and leave us soulless vegetables, in comes a few troops to mop up any determined resistance in case I and my oldest son have stood firm, then be ready for the girls coming back with moderately personable witches to greet them and start corrupting them to The Cause. If you are utterly selfish and don't care about people outside of yourself and those close to you, utterly simple reasoning. I've had too many children through my hands who think like that not to recognise it; catch it young and sometimes, just sometimes you can cure it. But not often. I have had too many failures to be sanguine about a cure once a child is over about five years old – unless they suffer a shock so profound that it makes the think and re-evaluate."

"I see" said Wulf.

"He's rather like Gilderoy Lockhart, isn't he?" said Jade shrewdly "All good looks, smile of the year, all squeak and no trousers."

"A fairly good summation" said Severus "His image is more important than the substance of what he does and is. And ultimately, Gilderoy Lockhart was ready to murder three children to maintain his image."

Jade considered that those of the bloodgroup they had with them was quite sufficient to produce an invisibility cloak or several; after all, the Peverell brothers had produced theirs without a bloodgroup.

"But it does cut down on the time and effort required" she said. "I'm guessing they may have had aid from one or more fey. Seagh and I will drag out the substance of feyspace and you people weave it, all right?"

"I don't know how to weave" said Hermione.

"I ain't asking for a brocaded gown with voided velvet trim" said Jade "We set up a warp of demiguise hair to tie it to this world and then make the weft of feyspace. Just in and out; simple."

Krait transfigured a chair into a loom as the easiest way to make one; demiguise hair was expensive but not difficult to get; and they did not take long to figure out how to tackle it with a single simple heddle. And then Seagh and Jade entered feyspace and danced its substance into a strand drawn by wand from its interface with the normal universe and drew it out, able to reach through so one drew and spun while the other passed it out to be wound on a shuttle and woven. The charmed shuttle flew back and forth as the heddle, enchanted to be in synchrony with it, lifted and dropped the threads.

With such it could proceed as fast as the thread was drawn from the other space.

The first cloak was a small one, enough to cover one person, just to test if it worked.

"It looks and feels like Harry's cloak" said Hermione "Doesn't it Ron?"

"Yeah" said Ron. "Time to try it, Jade!"

Jade pulled it over her.

"No parts of you visible; and even in strong light no shadows" said Severus. "Well done my dear; you have successfully duplicated one of the Hallows."

"The only one worth bothering with at that" said Jade, emerging. "Dead is dead and shouldn't be mucked with in any respect; after all if you want a chat you can always have a portrait. And wands are only as good as the wielder anyhow. Never bother with one myself 'cept for complex crap like this and any one wand is as good as any other."

"You're a bit unusual though" said Hermione "We all are I guess. Start another bigger one?"

"I need to enlarge the loom" said Krait "We could do with more of us in feyspace; give me the algorithm, Jade, and Lydia and I will come inside and double the spinning efforts, the weaving should hardly be slower just because the loom is wider."

They were working against time to get it sorted before the end of the holidays; the other children would arrive in less than a week.

But with four people using their wands to spin and the rest reaching in for it the large cloak was quickly completed.

Wulf watched.

"I really haven't got a clue how you do that" he said.

"And well you should not until we have you sworn to our side" said Severus "THEN we can invite you in fully."

Hermione shot him a sharp look; and Severus gave an almost imperceptible glance at Jade. Hermione's eyes widened. She was almost about to burst out 'but she's only a child' when she looked again at Jade working seriously to finish off the ends and sighed.

Jade was not really a child.

That night they took the three witches and the commandant, all rendered unconscious – by sap not by spell – and flew them to near the Austrian Odessa command post, high on an alpine peak and well guarded. With the invisibility cloak wrapped around them, Severus and Krait, using _mobilocorpus_ dragged in the four unconscious and bound bodies, right over the top of the castle, past vigilant-eyed watchers, shielded at least in part too from the scenting of hounds and werewolves; and into the central courtyard. A moment's wait to check no eyes were glancing their way; then the cloak was whisked of the prisoners and wrapped more closely about the lovers.

Of course they had to watch until someone saw the bundles on the ground; they perched on the castle's walls.

And the alarm was given; and stuurmzauberern ran out, wands at the ready, pointed at whatever this threat might be.

The cries of surprise – and not a little fear – were as music; and spells were being cast to arouse the four, and unbind them, and demands made to explain how came they to be there.

"Where did you come from, baby dear? The blue skies opened and I am here" quoted naughty Krait softly.

It was a question that the group could not answer.

Moreover, it was a base that the Major had not known about, one of the reasons for their choice; he had been based at a forward base set up purely to overlook Prince Peak.

That was being destroyed at this moment by Ron, Hermione, David, Ellie, Jade, Lydia, Seag, Erich and Tala, Sirri, Dione and Beloc.

It was only a small base after all with a maximum of a platoon at any one time; and they were going by Jade's rather terrible plan of enclosing it with a dance and drawing on the power of the whole group to cast _Episkayo_ on it.

Hermione had been shocked.

But then these monsters had sent Dementors against children; and she might easily have been there early with her little Penelope.

There is nothing quite as ruthless in the world as a mother whose infant is threatened.

Even David had been taken aback when Jade suggested it.

"You taught us about total war David" said Jade "They have brought total war to us; is it more terrible than huorns or erklings or werewolves free to feast amongst helpless children at Hogwarts had we not been hard enough to view it as little more than a slightly risky lark, or dementors amongst my infant sisters and brothers? They MUST be stopped. This is a terror tactic; we don't DESTROY the base we DISAPPEAR it."

"You are right" said David "We did not seek total war; but if that is what they want, that is what they shall have. It is a military target, a legitimate target; which is more than a ruddy school is."

Wulf, invited to the council had looked upon this terrible wonderful girl with horror and awe.

"Wulf" said Jade softly "Are there any there you would save?"

He lowered his eyes

"No" he said "Had any of my men lived and got back…. But though we werewolves were supposed to be comrades in arms we have never been anything more than tolerated and despised wand-fodder. There is nobody there."

And so they took invisibility potions to perform the enchanting dance; the darkness of the night covering any deficiencies in it, and safe in the knowledge that no werewolves survived to scent them.

And the personnel in the camp must be wondering where Major Raute and his men had got to and if there were any problems.

And the ritual progressed, possible only because of the ties of blood and love between its performers.

And then the heartbeats synchronised; and twelve voices cast the vanishing spell.

Silently, terribly the base disappeared; and a precisely circular bite of land with it.

"I guess we overdid it" said Jade; then slumped to the ground as did everyone else.

"What we need" said Ron "Is Draco to say 'that's what I'm trying to tell you kid, it ain't there any more it's been totally blown away'"

"Well you did it beautifully for him Ron" said Hermione "I'm sure he'd be proud of you."

Ron, uncertain of whether Hermione was being sarcastic or not, decided very wisely not to make reply to that!

"Does it upset the psychological advantage taking the ground too?" Jade asked David.

"No, I think it actually enhances it" said David. "it's perfectly circular and smooth. They won't have a clue how it was done. Maybe at LAST we might get a little peace."

"We'll have to destroy them sometime" said Jade.

"But not now" said David. "We don't have enough intelligence on the organisation as a whole. It really is a many headed beast mutable and….whatever else it was that Scales described the dark arts as."

"The dark arts are many, varied, ever-changing and eternal. Fighting them is like fighting a many headed monster which, each time a neck is severed sprouts a head even fiercer and cleverer than before. You are fighting that which is unfixed, mutating, indestructible. Your defences must therefore be as flexible and inventive as the arts you seek to undo" Jade quoted softly, having heard Severus on it many times. "And thus it is with Odessa. We can cut them back but until we stab them in the heart each head will come back hungrier and thirsting for revenge. With this sort of scare tactic we've effectively thrown sand on the severed stump like whassiface in Greek mythology and that delays the regrowth. But regrow it undoubtedly will."

"Hercules; the Lernean Hydra" said Hermione.

"See? I don't need to learn that stuff" said Jade "We have Hermione to google for it."

Hermione fell back on the tried and tested method of reproof by poking Jade; and then she cuffed her with two fingers.

"Hmm, remarkably satisfying that" she said "I can see why Severus uses it."

There were startled mental questions from other bloodkin; and a wideopen mindmeld to show them what had been done and why.

"I shouldn't mind being a fly on the wall of Gerhardt's office when they report all this" said Severus when they got home.

"What bug the place like Rita Skeeter? Actually it's not such a stupid idea" said Krait. "Has she got out of the zoo yet, Hermione?"

"Not so far as I know" said Hermione "Did I ought to release her?"

"Do you think it'll have improved her nature and scruples?" asked Severus.

"I doubt it."

"Then if I were you I'd leave her be. Where she isn't bugging anyone in any slang sense of the word."

The next day they had visitors; and very welcome ones.

Kronprinz Victor of Belsornia, Pris, no longer Lockhart, his wife, and Franz von Mensch und Eberhardt, Victor's father and prince consort to Princess Josefina, Victor's muggle mother.

Krait kissed Pris and all the girls congratulated her, wanted to hear all about the wedding and the dress she had worn and was she pregnant yet.

Pris blushed rosily and said she wasn't totally sure yet but broom travel was making her a little queasy so maybe.

"We have, I fear, a more serious business" said Prince Franz. "We crave aid."

"As a cousin of my wife's and as a friend of Hogwarts you have only to name it" said Severus.

"I will if I may tell a story of some of my family to give background" said Franz. "It begins some two hundred years ago; or more"

Severus served cocoa so they might listen to the story in the traditional manner.

"Once there was a Prince of a magical country called Zorn, a small valley near the borders of Hungary, unplottable and its only entrance protected by a Fidelius charm" said Franz. "His name was Irun. The people of Zorn did not call him prince because they were not numerous and there was no need for titles among them. Everyone knew who the child Irun was. Including his wicked uncle, who had been banished from the land and was the reason for the Fidelius charm. Now it came to pass that a betrothal was arranged for Irun with a girl child from an Indian wizarding family and her name was Sandalla. And Irun travelled to meet her. Unfortunately his wicked uncle got wind of this and kidnapped the children; and transfigured Sandalla into a wooden doll and Irun into an iron boy, using their names to give him the idea and the magical affinity. Irun was placed on the clock of the wizard's house to strike the hour with an iron hammer and Sandalla was cast with other toys into an old attic nursery. And the wicked uncle declared that officials from Zorn were welcome to search his house. Which they did, and in vain. But he had been hoist by his own petard as they say, for the elders of Zorn declared that as there was no body found of Irun, he could not be dead and therefore was still the heir and would rule in absentia after his father's death.

"And one of the elders wondered about the iron boy; and told his son, who told HIS son, who managed to acquire the house when the wicked uncle died, embittered and impoverished, complete with magical guardians bred by magical experiments that would be illegal today. And he researched and set up enchanted conditions to allow the spell to be broken, for the enchantment laid upon them included a curse that they would remain thus in all time. So the magician curse-breaker made the clock strike thirteen; and it awoke the children but still alas! made of sandal wood and iron. The breaking of the rest of the curse was down to them; and after many adventures they reached the entrance to the country of Zorn, through a narrow tunnel in the mountains; and though neither had any recollection of their previous lives, Irun was able, because of who he was, to enter the Fidelius charm. And then they might bathe in the river in the valley that was the final breaking of the curse. They duly grew up; and married; and had two children, Alanna and Ebon. And as Alanna grew to adulthood a terribly wounded wizard, fleeing what became Grindelwald's organisation, managed somehow to stumble in at the wrong end of the valley. He was my grandfather; and he married Alanna and their son married Drusilla Malfoy. Alanna's brother meanwhile married a girl from the valley and they had four children, one of whom was their son Steele. The people of Zorn sealed their valley against intruders even more firmly to keep out Nazis and Odessa with one exception; that true refugees could see the path. Much like the enchantment of the Room of Requirements Victor has told me about. Steele married such a refugee. His only son is Irun; and Irun has but one child, a daughter, Sandalla. And it is their wish that she grow up with normal children and should meet modern witches and wizards. So I suggested she come to your school here."

"Most flattering" said Severus "We have not the facilities yet that Hogwarts has."

"No; but your school is smaller, less frightening for a girl who has led a rather sheltered life. If you will take her she has been charged straitly that she will have no concessions, that she is to be treated as any ordinary child and that she must keep her identity as the Princess of Zorn a secret. But because we have opposed Odessa in both Belsornia and Zorn – indeed once, Belsornia was part of Zorn until all those with any talent withdrew into the high valley as medieval hysteria over witchcraft reached its heights – we have enemies who would count it a coup to seize the child. We would take it as a favour if someone might escort her."

"A job I think for the Marauders" said Severus "Jade, you and Wulf have a mission first; I will ask the other Marauders to come out early and then you will all escort Sandalla to the railway station at Zurich since the link is to be completed tomorrow. You will be seniors so escorting small people will not look strange. Lynx and Fabian will retain their Prefectures too, and I am promoting Jem to join the three girls I made up last year plus another upper sixth girl and the boy who will be joining us for the upper sixth year. He has been working at home so he seems reasonable material to have as a prefect. There will also be an older new boy, Adrian Petrescu from Romania, he's been expelled from Durmstrang."

"Crumbs, whatever do you have to do to be expelled from Durmstrang?" demanded Jade.

"Telling the head that her philosophy sucked because he objected to the punishment of a house elf" said Severus. "He's asthmatic; keep an eye on him."

Jade nodded.

"I will. But first Wulf and I have a furry little mission."

It was a stiff broom ride to the secure base where the werewolf families dwelt, and only the discomfort kept their minds from the sweeter discomfort of flying so close to each other. It was a grim place, with high walls around it deep in the forest to prevent the inmates from running off at full moon.

Jade growled angrily.

"FINE sort of protection; they could set up invisible wards against the animal form that acted as well without looking like a prison!" she said.

"I have been here since I was thirteen save when I was sent on missions; and on missions we had to make the voluntary change so I remember little about them" he said "Madam Myrtle Malfoy had wounded me which started me changing; and I recalled that I scented that she was pregnant. Maybe I have savaged pregnant women before unthinkingly; I do not know. I cannot know. I – I have done terrible things I am sure. They said we were confined for our own safety….. or maybe theirs so that if we were wild and uncontrollable when they did not want us being so we should not attack them or those who would trail us….."

"Wulf" said Jade "Whatever you have done, which was moreover all unknowing, I love you. My Wulf is a gentle, honourable man; and implacable in that honour. We shall right the wrongs done to these poor werewolves here one day; and stealing them all will be one of our first missions against Odessa, this I promise."

Wulf drew her to him and held her, breathing in her scent for comfort.

"How do we get in?" he asked "It has wards and an anti apparating zone; and guards around the walls."

"Heh, we go the other way in" said Jade. "Hold me tight and concentrate on your own house; I need to legilimens a picture of it to get us in."

"You are a legilimens so young? Your father? He taught you?"

"I kind of picked it up as I went along actually" said Jade "Watching him do it….ah yes I see. Hold me now Wulf; and try to think about your house not how much we want to kiss each other. I don't want to splinch us even for your sweet kisses."

Wulf concentrated; worry for his daughter helped.

Jade checked the invisibility cloak was tight about them and used the elf-style apparition to take them directly inside.

It was a squeeze; there were two men in the little girl's bedroom but no child. One was berating the other.

"You have turned your back for an instant and she is gone, gone without trace?"

"She went to the bathroom; I cannot follow a madchen into the bathroom!"

"She is no Madchen, she is an animal, a useful asset, you should not think of them as people!"

Jade slipped her hand into Wulf's feeling him trembling in rage and disgust next to her.

"Well we shall have to try to find her; surely she cannot have got out of the compound?"

"You are wrong, idiot! There was an alert when one of the guards did not report and he had been confunded and wandered off into the forest looking, he says, for pretty flowers of all things!"

Jade grinned.

Irmi sounded a resourceful little maid!

"It cannot be more than a day at most…. I reported when she did not come out of the bathroom. It is not my fault that my report was not followed up immediately" said the less important wizard sulkily.

"What is missing? What of her clothes?"

"Well she took nothing but a neat pile of a change of clothes in to the bathroom; as is reasonable" said the under wizard. "Her school trunk is here. I do not understand; surely she would wish to obey the colonel and seek for her father?"

"I do not understand it either. Her dossier says she is devoted to Hauptman Luytens, insofar as these animals can be of course. Hauptman! If you ask me giving them ranks shows too much favour to them. Her orders were specific; find and release him and report on the dispositions of the enemy. What could there be in that to make her run off?"

"I do not know sir. Shall I join the searchers? I know what the brat looks like after all."

"Yes do; and may you find her you dolt or I shall know who to blame!"

Both wizards left; and Jade looked out of the window to see them out of the house.

Then she sprang the lock on the plain school trunk.

It was full of Prince Peak uniform. Jade did a quick search.

"Clever girl your Irmi" she said "She's coming to find you anyway; but NOT under their orders so she does not have to choose between duty and personal wishes."

"How do you know?"

"Because she has enough uniform with her to pass muster at the train station" said Jade "Trust me; I'm a schoolgirl. I know exactly what kit one has; and how much one might need to not look out of place. Where she is now I don't know but the day after tomorrow she'll be where they least expect her – Zurich train station."

"Should we trail her?"

"No. Yes, but not to pick her up. Safer for her if we're not involved. But they'll use hounds; why don't we confuse the scent as two perfectly ordinary wolves?"

"I like it" said Wulf "But I am scared for her!"

"The most dangerous bit was getting out of here" said Jade. "I reckon she slipped that soldier something so he dozed while she was supposedly bathing. NICE touch to confund the wizard on guard; she has a wand with her for protection and the German authorities are laxer about under age wand use so she doesn't have to worry about using it in self defence. I think Irmi's just fine; and I have bucketloads of respect for her. Had you a secret place to leave things?"

"Only the wolfbane potion."

"Check there; and see if she has any. Full moon the night after we get back" said Jade.

Wulf lifted a floorboard in the bathroom.

"It's all gone" he reported "There's a scrap of paper!"

He reached in and opened the note; for note it was.

"Daddy; they say divination revealed you are alive. They believe some English professor might be doing experiments on you. They want me to find you but I shan't play their games. If you aren't a prisoner of the English I've gone to the English school they now call Prinzhorn and I am looking for you there. I have potion so they need not find out I am a werewolf and experiment on me. I love you daddy."

Wulf sobbed.

"That's a very good little girl you have there" said Jade softly "We'll keep her safe. Now let's slip out and confuse the dogs."

Wulf nodded.

They apparated out again and Wulf was quickly able to pick up his daughter's scent; and they ran along side it until it came to a river. Jade barked happily; and they turned to run along the river bank, which scent any hound was likely to follow.

And they found a place that could be lair; and waited for the baying of the hounds.

And let the hunstmen see them as they ran slipping between the trees.

"Just a pair of ordinary wolves!" he said "Freidl, your hounds are useless!"

"I can't help it if they can't tell werewolf from wolf-wolf" grumbled the dog handler. "Let's go back to the brat's last known position and try again."

Wulf and Jade apparated back to where they had hidden the cloak and the brooms – up in a tree – and returned to Prince Peak to report.

"She could have taken any one of a number of routes" said Jade "we can't cover them all; and I would not wish to as our own presence is more likely to alert the searchers. If she does NOT turn up at school we assume she has been caught and go back in some force looking. She's safest left to her own excellent devices, though I know that has Wulf climbing the walls."

"I should be too if it were Jade or Lydia" said Severus looking sympathetically at Wulf "Even knowing how capable they are!"

Wulf nodded.

"My head knows that Jade is right" he said "My heart yearns to be out there searching."

"You shall be on the train my friend" said Severus "And when she gets on you will have much to catch up with."

"Thank you" said Wulf simply. "I believe she will be there; and I hope you scheduled in those German lessons I am teaching."

"Of course; I have every faith in the ingenuity of daughters" said Severus.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

The Marauders had gone by Eurorail to Belsornia and had been taken as far as the rail network went.

"Now we must cross the land of confundment and go over the Blue Mountains by broom" said Victor "And I shall be your secret keeper to show you into the Valley of Zorn. Follow me and watch out for dragons."

"Dragons? Nobody said anything about dragons!" said Lynx. Victor shrugged.

"The land of confundment lies between Belsornia and Zorn with muggle repelling spells on it and part of it is a dragon reserve" he said "There are wild abraxan horses there as well – and the ruined castle that belonged to the wicked uncle. It's a longish way but we're all used to cross country flying with Padfoot, aren't we?"

It was a longish way. Through a forest of dark pines, over a river and rolling rounded hill country; carefully skirting the dragon reserve.

"Hungarian Horntails" said Lynx "Can I say right now I don't like dragons."

"Well leave them on the side of your plate" quipped Fabian.

Lynx reached over to poke him.

"That's a Hawke Malfoy sort of comment you!" she said.

Fabian grinned.

"I'll take that as a compliment…there's a dragon heading for us."

"I'll do what mum did" said Jade waving her wand. The dragon sheered off.

"What did you do?"

"Convinced him that there was a mating call a long way thattaway" said Jade. "There was a nosy one wanted to play with David's aeroplane on the way to the World Cup last time. I see a cliff face with a cave on the other side of that big river."

"The cave is where the abraxans live" said Victor "It has a phosphorescent fungus growing in it; it might have potion potential but I've never got around to gathering any to find out and we're not stopping today Jade Snape."

"Damn, he knows me too well" grinned Jade.

"We fly over the cliffs and cross those mountains" said Victor "They're unmappable too; this whole region is."

"Do areas like this account for slight variations and inaccuracies in muggle maps and calculations of the size of the earth?" asked Senagra "Only it's a really big area, the size of the home counties at least!"

"Wouldn't be surprised" said Victor. "'Ware of ears popping; we go quite high."

They swallowed firmly to counteract the pressure changes as they rose over the steep, snow-capped mountains and absently cast warming charms.

And deep in the mountains was a cleft into which plunged a silvery waterfall; and beyond it an area of…mist.

"The apparent mist covers the valley" said Victor "Down the cleft; here" he handed a piece of paper to everyone.

Each read, "the hole the river runs into"

And suddenly from being an exitless plunge pool they could see where the tunnel ran carrying the river through at the lower level.

"There's a lot of wild mandrake grows on the lip of the waterfall" said Victor "The specific minerals in the water make something akin to Mandragora potion, as a restorative; when Irun and Sandalla reached here, they had to climb down the cliff but needed to jump the last bit; and the river did the rest. There's steps cut look, but the path has deliberately been allowed to decay. We can fly along the tunnel; wands on though because it's a bit long and rather dark."

There was a pathway all along the riverside; but broom travel was easier. And illumination by wand was necessary because the passage twisted and turned.

And then they were flying out into the light; and they gasped!

The valley was beautiful and fertile and smelled of green growing things; and yet not far away were the towers of a city both beautiful and yet somehow alien, glowing with white marble.

"It is something else, isn't it?" said Victor, softly "Nothing can prepare you; so I didn't bother. The witches and wizards of Zorn are actually so cultured it makes your toenails hurt; mum says they're the nearest thing she's ever met to being Vulcans, though they don't have the insistence on quashing the emotions, quite the reverse, they're very warm. They use love extensively for their rituals; Prince Irun read your dad's book, Jade, it was one of the things that impressed him enough to let him have care of Sandalla. They have records going back thousands of years and they reckon they're survivors of the sinking of the culture of so-called Atlantis, the ones who saw the catastrophe coming."

The people in the city of Zorn were, as Fabian later put it, unnatural for city folk.

They smiled a lot and greeted the visitors cheerfully. They all wore simple robes in gay colours, mostly calf length for ease of movement and coloured scarves too to protect the head and for decoration. Goblins and part goblins moved freely amongst them.

The Marauders certainly approved THAT.

Sandalla would have no difficulty settling in with Severus' strict anti-racism policy.

The big building in the centre of town was not, as they had wondered, a palace; it was, Victor explained, a public building with debating forum, libraries and law courts for those who misbehaved.

"I'm glad there are some" said Jade candidly "I think a place where everyone really was universally nice to each other might be cloyingly and nauseatingly boring."

"The laws are based on mutual respect" said Victor "And some of the people can be a bit cloyingly nauseating after a while. Think Styricum from David Eddings and you're not that far out."

Jade brightened.

"Oh well, that was full of petty-minded, jealous little undercurrents so I guess that makes me feel a heap better" she said "Human nature is nasty; trammelling it makes civilisation but civilising it too much leads to that which is not human any more."

"Oh they are human" said Victor "But they have a small enough population that deeply aberrant behaviour can be studied and pretty well cured at an early age using deep legilimensy. It's a great place to visit and chill, but I'm too much of the wicked big world to want to live here."

"Well they are realistic about the wicked big world I guess if they want Sandalla to learn about it."

"Yes; sundry people of the elder families live for generations at a time outside reporting back to keep in touch with reality" said Victor "It's kind of a saving grace in their horribly inherent goodness that they manage it. Here's the Prince's house."

It was a large town house but nothing special.

There was a big reception hall, in which people were waiting; but they looked at the foreign garb of the visitors and politely made way.

"Good luck with the new school!" said one.

"Our hearts are with you as you fight evil; and our wands ready to come to your aid!" said another.

Jade stopped and curtseyed.

"On behalf of my father, the head of Prince Peak school, I thank you deeply for your kind words, best wishes and offers of aid" she said "I pray that we do not ever have to disturb the peace of this lovely valley; and that we may win the war against those that would try to impose their wrong-headed ideas on it by force" she said.

She was kissed by several people.

Somehow it was not the horrid sorts of kisses that people bestow upon the cute, but genuine warmth, more as she would expect to find from her family.

It might be horribly good here but people were genuine; and Jade swore a quiet oath to herself that she would do her utmost to keep it that way.

Irun the younger shook hands and bestowed kisses all round – to the horror of Fabian who was far too English to like any kissing much especially between males – and introduced Sandalla.

Sandalla was a merry-eyed child who explained solemnly that she had read all the 'Cassie' books – by Krait – and several muggle school books and had made a list of the jokes and japes one was supposed to perpetrate.

"It isn't required" said Lynx, hurriedly "The jokes in the books are partly to make it a good story; though most of the Cassie ones at least are based on things a large number of people did at Hogwarts all compressed into one small girl and her friends. I'd go with the flow and see if you and your friends want to get up to mischief; and as Fabian and I are two of the prefects it's in our remit to try to stop you!"

Sandalla beamed.

"Yes, that is in the unwritten rules I think" she said.

"She'll do" said Senagra.

There was little time to stay; but they were invited to a city banquet – held outside on huge tables, which everyone seemed to attend – and were toasted as the forces of civilisation.

Sandalla rode on Victor's broom on the way back, and her school kit was shared out amongst the marauders in saddle bags.

She was a neat little packer too, which would stand her in good stead!

The journey back was arduous but rewarding for Sandalla's enjoyment of it; and then they were taking the muggle rail transport all the way to Zurich, the last thing the Odessa forces would be likely to be expecting for the precious only child of the secret kingdom they could not penetrate. Prinz Franz was also sending a flying coach as a decoy; and the marauders hoped grimly that nothing happened to the driver and the wizards lurking within to deal with any opposition since it was more than a decoy and more of a Q-carriage as Jade described it.

They reached Zurich in plenty of time but late enough to take Sandalla right through onto the train.

Zurich was a very art deco sort of station, huge and confusing; and the marauders all agreed that the inside looked like the inside of a star destroyer with archways the same sort of shape as on Darth Vader's super star destroyer and conduits and such.

They soon found the wall panel through which they were to go and Senagra took Sandalla and her luggage through and onto the goblin-manned platform and into a carriage pulled by the big brown Bayer-Garret engine.

Then they waited for other new ones.

"I kinda want to transfigure into a wookiee and see if any of the Swiss security guards ask 'where are you taking that…thing'" grinned Jade.

"Don't we want your werewolf for that?" said Lynx.

They had picked up on their associate's feelings of course and had pestered her to spill until she told them about Wulf.

"You have that wrong" said Jade with dignity "He USED to be a werewolf but he's all right NOOOOOW!" and she made the last word a wolf howl.

They were Looked At by several Swiss travellers. Jade shrugged, curtseyed and made apologetic gestures.

Jade recognised Justin Finch-Fletchley which the others did not since he was a contemporary of Harry. He was accompanying a small boy with a cauldron.

"Justin Finch-Posshly as I live and breath!" said Jade.

Justin did a double take.

"Jade Snape? Good grief, sixth form and all grown up, hardly seems yesterday when you were sat illegally on Slytherin's table jinxing Pansy Parkinson under the table without a wand!"

Jade grinned.

"There's been some changes since your time, Slytherin and Gryffindor tables are next to each other because of there being so many friends and sibs – Lydia's a Gryff by the way – and with yelled conversations it hurts Professor Dumbledore's eardrums less."

"Yes I remember one at full pitch between Hermione and Krait about, of all things Arithmancy. I mean, I ASK you, Arithmancy at BREAKFAST time? It's obscene!"

Jade laughed.

"Lets agree to differ there! Who's the sprout?"

"Oh this is my cousin Julian Finch. He's also a cousin of a wizarding world character called Fabian Ramage"

"That's me" said Fabian "Hello cousin Julian; nice to meet you."

"Thank you!" said Julian. He looked excited "I'm looking forward to it, specially potions 'cos I like chemistry."

The marauders exchanged looks.

"He'll do" they said in chorus.

"Well small weevil" said Fabian "That's a first year by the way, same as at Hogwarts – just walk through that wall there and get on the train. Your other cousin will show you how; he's done it himself often enough at Kings' Cross."

"Weevil? New since my time. Appropriate though" said Justin and firmly marched his weevil off.

Sylvia and Hilda Hubble turned up next with a small girl in tow with all the paraphernalia of a first year, and whose straining trunk burst all over the platform.

"Oh Rose" the girls both said in dismay.

"Our cousin" Hilda explained. She was wearing a Head Girl badge "She's even more accident prone than Maud Hubble-Langstaff."

"Crumbs is that possible?" said Lynx "Right young Rose, let's get you repacked."

Several very experienced packers set to work and Jade, Lynx and Senagra rapidly moved to exclude Sylvia and Hilda from packing.

Everything went in this time with room to spare.

"GOSH!" said Rose in awe "How did you manage that? Mum and me couldn't!"

"I guess it's a Hubble thing" laughed Lynx "Sylvia and Hilda can't pack for toffee either by the looks!"

"Mummy packs our trunks" said Sylvia, then flushed as the marauders looked on her in surprise. "Well, if I did it'd take three days to do and would still be overflowing!" she added.

"We are going to have to give lessons" said Jade. "Not that I can give a lordly prefect and a lordly head girl orders but I suggest you poke that weevil onto the train quickly before she has any more Hubble moments" and she winked at Rose to take the sting out of it.

"Why aren't you a prefect? And Senagra at that?" asked Hilda directly.

"Because dad didn't want to show favouritism to me and as Senagra wasn't one at Hogwarts either he held her too so we both weren't. As her dad is a friend of his. And besides I guess it might make too many as he wanted some older boys to be" said Jade.

"It's silly, you both ought to be" said Hilda "I'll talk to Professor Snape after I've chatted to other prefects. If the other prefects don't think it's favouritism I should think he'll listen."

"He probably would too" said Jade "Thanks; I don't really mind but we are used to the marauders giving strong advice and having it taken badge or no."

"Should I be standing out here too?" asked Hilda.

"Not a half bad idea" said Jade "Lionel does and David did. Get Rose stowed and come back to us huh?"

The girls approached the wall nervously.

"Just walk firmly and positively" said Fabian "If you hesitate you'll bounce."

"We always used to go by broom before" said Hilda "It's all very new."

"The whole train experience is part of school life" said Lynx.

And the Hubbles were safely through.

Something that they had noticed was that Zurich was stiff with goblins, all under careful concealment as goblins always were; but busy covertly staring at Senagra in her school uniform.

One came over once the girls had gone through the barrier.

"Excuse, but you are a school for witches and wizards, you use a gate."

"Yes that is so sir" said Lynx, as senior prefect there.

His ears went up.

"Sir? You call me sir? The English are then as we have heard practising equality?"

"Trying to" said Lynx, laconically "Those of us who have been at Hogwarts have better educated outlook than some of the general public however."

"It's getting better for the goblin in the street" said Senagra "I don't get looked at askance for walking tall and expecting to take my turn in a queue and I get people back me up if someone tries to push ahead of me and I shout at him. And there's been the rather public and spectacular trial of a man who incited a small riot by killing the leader of a peaceful delegation."

"Wonderful, wonderful!" said the goblin "We have I think a better life here in Switzerland than in many places but equality is something we do not have. But ….is your school then open to goblins other than English ones?"

"You look to be a prosperous man sir, and unlikely to have problems sending your offspring" said Jade "It is a paying school. Because it's still small; scholarships will be only small in numbers and only for the brightest and best for a few years. Which is not to say a goblin could not get a scholarship, Kinat, Senagra's brother would have won one had not his father been able to pay. If any goblin can manage the fees or they have children bright enough to win a partial scholarship I don't see why that should not be negotiated. It's my dad's school; he's good at reasonable."

"Then I shall write; and I shall ask my friends to write also" said he. "What is the name I should write to?"

"Professor Severus Snape, Prince Peak Academy, Prinzhorn, Austria" said Jade "An owl will find it."

Several others had arrived while they were talking to the goblin, Amy Walden of the upper sixth, pleased to be made a prefect, Esmerelda Jorkins with twin boys in tow, both looking about with bright, questioning eyes, one with a withered arm.

"My sister says one of you fixed a girl's back, can you fix my arm?" he demanded.

"I don't know" said Jade "I shouldn't see why not; but I'll look at it later if you don't mind. If I can't my mum might be able to. Name, young weevil?"

"Granville. That's my twin Albert."

"Now why when I look at you do I think your names ought to be 'Trouble' and 'More Trouble'?" grinned Jade.

They both gave her identical hurt looks.

"Here comes worse trouble" said Albert "That's Angel Hallow-Hellibore that is"

Angelica was with her half brother and gave Jade a quick, adoring smile; for it was Angelica whose back Jade had straightened.

"My brother Angel" she said. "He's sulking because of coming to a girls' school."

"My stars, we can't have someone with a name like Angel Hallow Hellibore" said Jade "It's as bad as Amadeo Hero Lockhart, commonly known as 'Mad' back in Hogwarts. We'll go by the initials; I dub you AHHa from hereonin."

AHHA grinned.

"Suits me" he said "I'm not keen on the name myself, it's kind of a family name though. And I see other boys? The Jorkins twins? Maybe it won't be so bad."

"Oh there's several boys in the first" said Jade " George Ingate's starting, his brother's in the sixth with us, and there's a kid called Julian who looks a decent type and there's half of another set of twins on our list to come too. And don't write off girls; there's three out of four girls in our gang and in our time we were responsible for a significant amount of the trouble in Hogwarts. Which of course we've grown out of" she added virtuously.

"Mostly" added Lynx with a giggle.

"Hello, did I hear the word trouble?" a slightly older boy turned up with Hillary Cantripp and her sister Gloria following "I'm Sebastian Cantripp, transfer from Hellibore's and I do trouble very well."

"Well stick to your own age group, horrid wart" said Jade "Wart is second year; weevil is first year. On you go all you horrible warts and weevils walk straight through the wall and get on the train, do NOT pass go do not collect two hundred galleons."

Hillary gave her a slightly harassed smile and followed on behind her brother.

"He's a pain I'm afraid but we'll try to sit on him" Gloria informed the marauders as she followed her siblings.

Some of the other older ones managed to arrive in good time, Amarantha Keil and Morgana Fairchild and Edward Dubois transferred for this last year accompanying his sister Bethany, now of the fifth.

Edward stopped to greet Hilda.

"Hi, I think we're in the same year?" he said.

"Upper Sixth? Goodness, that must be awfully tough for you to transfer in the middle of a NEWT year!"

"I'd have come as soon as professor Snape took over if I'd only been allowed if he was set up for boys" said Edward "But he's been kind enough to arrange me extra homework to catch up to reasonable standards; I get to take four NEWTs which is better than I hoped for."

"What are you doing?"

"Charms, Transfiguration, Enchanting and Arithmancy – had to catch a long way up with that we only do a short course to cover how it helps other things at Hellibores – and I want to take an OWL in Potions because we don't have a good teacher at Hellibores like you've always had."

"You are a glutton for punishment!" laughed Hilda "I'm a hop out o' kin with potions, I'm quite good so I can help you there; I'm taking Potions, Transfigurations and Enchanting. More than I expected!"

"Heh, I think you'll have Madam Granger to yourself for upper sixth arithmancy" said Jade "If you'll 'scuse me butting in on the conversation. She's a bit abrasive but she's good. She helped calculate the best time to kill Voldemort you know, and other rituals too; so she's a practical arithmancer not just a theorist."

"I look forward to meeting her" said Edward, shaking hands and exchanging names with Jade.

Pamela Blackwood and Rosamund Mandrake of the lower sixth arrived, the latter with a new style of hat for her, an Eton boater with brown and orange ribbons.

"That's rather fetching, Ros" said Jade "And not a half bad idea; it can get hot up in the Alps, reckon I might copy your style."

"I like hats" said Rosamund "even though your dad has cured my ears so I don't need to keep them covered all winter. This was in a school uniform shop in London so I persuaded mum to buy it and we switched ribbons."

"It's a boys' hat I think but you make it look really feminine" said Jade "Dad might even decide to institute something similar as uniform if it does its job of keeping off the heat in the summer term. I'll see him about it."

Rosamund grinned.

"First time I've been cited as an example not pointed at as a freak" she said.

Jade sniffed.

"People are too ready to point and criticise" she said. "Some do about dad's scars."

"How did he get them?"

"There was a naughty girl who wanted to use alihotsy on a love rival and spilled dragon's heart powder" said Jade "It burns on contact with air, with toxic fumes. He sounded the alarm and went to put it out before the whole school burned down. Mum helped; it's why my sister Lilith was born early. And Mum managed to save his hand so he wouldn't lose his touch as a potioneer; she knew he'd care more about that then about his looks so that was what she concentrated her spells on."

"What an awful, silly child!" gasped Rosamund "What happened?"

"Well the head offered amnesty if the culprit owned up to a silly prank, but she didn't; and was caught in the act of stealing from the potions' dungeon again a year or so later" said Jade "She was expelled. It was before I started school but I remember it pretty vividly, being evacuated from the castle in the middle of the night and mum and dad heaved to St Mungo's and being scared; we had an apartment in the school you see, extended married quarters."

"Oh I suppose you'd have to for married professors" said Rosamund.

A lad about Jade's own age approached.

"James Hubble-Langstaff" he said "My parents thought I'd get a better education here or at Hogwarts – my kid sister ended up there in the fracas last year – and Professor Snape was looking for boys to leaven the lump of girls."

"Yes I know Maud" said Jade "Young limb. One of the most highly detentioned weevils we've had for a long time, her and the pack she runs with. I suppose you're as bad."

James grinned.

"Might be" he said.

"Well there's one other boy in your year, my brother Seag, so you won't be alone" said Jade. "I'm sure the pair of you will manage a few juicy detentions between you."

James grinned.

He hoped so!

The fifth and the lower sixth were to be the largest years apart from the first with the transfers from Hogwarts, ten in the lower sixth and eleven in the year below. The first had eleven in it too with Sandalla, more than half of them boys. The smallest year was the second, swelled to four pupils by the inclusion of Sebastian Cantripp, for of the four girls left after Madam Hardbroom swept half a dozen off to England one was withdrawn by her parents over the inclusion of boys in the school. Jade knew her father minded little about losing that one; there was a nasty streak of cruelty in her nature that he had noticed.

Going through the wall to join a train was new to all the girls; all of whom had been dropped off more or less haphazardly over the first day directly at the school hitherto. Having a train with a definite leaving time set the tone for promptness and efficiency which would hopefully be instilled into the school as a whole. The girls at least knew each other, and Jade noted several arrivals hanging about until others they knew arrived to brave the barrier together.

Jem delivered his small brother George; small Kate Grant arrived with third year sister Emily, and the twins Fred and Florence Visick arrived together taking every opportunity to tell the Head Girl how glad they were to come together instead of being split to different schools.

They struck Jade as being over fond of fawning on prefects for her liking, noting that they made sure to be so polite to everyone they saw with a prefect's badge on and ignoring her utterly and drawing back rather from Senagra.

THAT would have to be jumped on.

The last weevil to arrive was called Silvina Brewer who had two older brothers one still at Hellibores; her mother brought her and informed Hilda that although they did not OBJECT to the school becoming coeducational they had decided not to disturb the younger boy where he was settled.

If anyone thought it was his loss they said nothing about it.

They were awaiting just one more boy; and a stray girl called Irmi as well as a few disparate middle schoolers.

The boy approached diffidently.

"Please, Prince Peak Academy?" he asked.

"Adrian Petrescu?" asked Jade.

He nodded.

"Good; you're the last boy on my list, in a class of all girls I'm afraid, but Seb Cantripp in the year below you is in the same situation. Walk through the wall there, with decision and firmness and you'll be on the platform, look for a boy with untameable sandy hair, that's Sebastian. Try not to get a detention between you until you actually reach the school, I'm sure the pair of you will find some silly girl who's ready to be rude about boys be tolerant please unless it's really nasty. We don't want you having an asthma attack over injustice unless there's somebody with an _apneo_ spell on hand, and if you are friendly with young Seb I shall have to teach him how to cast it" added Jade. "When you've learned to cast non vocally you'll be able to sort yourself out meantime stick near people who know how to do it, ok?"

"Er, yes. Thank you. Did you know I was expelled?"

"From Durmstrang? Yes, for the crime of being a decent person. It's against their rules I think."

He managed a grin.

"Yes it is" he said.

And Jade hustled him through; because there was a very blonde, very German little girl of about the right age hovering uncertainly.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Jade smiled encouragingly at the child who came over with an obvious squaring of the shoulders.

"Please, I am ineligible for Durmstrang but I want a witching education" she said, rattling off a speech she had obviously been rehearsing "I am an orphan but I can work to pay for my place. My name is Irmtraut Luytens."

"Oh you won't have to work for your place, Irmi" said Jade cheerfully "Your dad is paying for you; he's teaching German at the school and he's waiting on the train. Jolly resourceful of you to give those awful people the slip; we just missed you, you know! But Wulf will tell you more about it; come and I'll take you directly to him."

Irmi froze. Was this a trap? But this girl KNEW! Should she go or should she run? Was her father really there?

Jade sighed.

"I don't want him to come out in case any Odessa types are around" she said "He hasn't formally resigned his commission; he would not until he knew you were safe, in case they recaptured you. We left you to make your own way so as not to invite interest in you; it's been hard for him, worrying. I wish you will come with me and not make me fetch him out."

"All right" said Irmi, taking Jade's hand.

And in the compartment in the end carriage where Wulf was waiting a little girl flung herself on her daddy; and Wulf hugged her, tears streaming down his face.

Jade left them to it; and positioned herself firmly outside so that nobody should interrupt.

Strictly speaking it was the sixth form and prefect carriage, but the others could just find other compartments.

Indeed those that had come through already had; nobody wanted to share a compartment with a grim faced male adult who looked like he might be a new professor; and Wulf had been particularly grim faced as time went on for wondering if Irmi would make it!

Jade did not bother to go out again; Lynx had seen her come in with Irmi and they would not expect her. There were plenty of whippers-in with the other Marauders and Hilda.

Actually it was probably all right to do a quick rounds of the carriages and check out how people were shaking down.

Jade walked to the other end to return slowly.

Angel – AHHa – was holding forth about the MSHG that his sister had told him about and how there should be a junior contingent, explaining that you got to learn extra stuff and to fight dark wizards and things.

This put off Fred and Florence from the word go, protesting that no-one in their right mind would get up early just to do more work! Silvina Brewer was horrified too, and Kate Grant sniffed and said her sister had not mentioned it.

AHHa had several already convinced recruits however in the form of Julian Finch – who knew about the Hogwarts MSHG – and Rose Hubble who had been told about it by Sylvia and Hilda, two of its founder members at Prince Peak; George Ingate who explained he had joined in at Hogwarts from the orphanage; and Sandalla who said shyly that the Marauders had mentioned it; and the Jorkins twins whose sister was the other founder member.

AHHa was a little disconcerted that so many people were knowledgeable but proceeded to throw out those who weren't interested to hold a junior meeting by the means of swapping around spells they already knew. Jade came upon them; after having been grumbled at by the other three, now sharing a compartment with the three girls of the second, and told them to report at five thirty next morning and carry on as they were doing. The three ejected she had comforted and pointed out that they did not have to join the MSHG but that as the second year girls in here were not interested either, they would surely be more comfortable anyway.

The third had acquired Sebastian Cantripp in their compartment ; the girls and the boys huddled at opposite ends and Gloria Cantripp glaring at her brother.

"Any of you decided to join the MSHG?" demanded Jade.

The boys raised their hands; Sebastian had been explaining to Adrian.

"I might" said Gloria.

"Cor, don't bust a gut" said Sebastian.

"Uncalled for rudeness even to a sibling" said Jade seeing Gloria stiffen up. "Passage you three then; I have some information for you."

They followed her out.

"There's a new girl who'll be in your class" said Jade bluntly "She's been a captive of ODESSA as a hostage. She escaped. She's going to be a bit traumatised and will not understand how we do things; she also has a health problem not helped by her captivity. Without referring to it I want you three to look out for her and make friendly overtures and just be there for her. I'll be persuading her into the MSHG to give her more of a chance to make friends. She's a brave, loyal girl with a great deal of resourcefulness. She has no mother, her mother died birthing her. Her dad is now free too and is teaching German for us; she has not seen him for a year and so she may be more inclined to seek him out than I would seek out my father, say. She's not teacher's petting by doing that but seeking reassurance. Can you help out?"

"Most certainly" said Adrian.

"Sounds like a good sort" said Sebastian "Of course we shall help out!"

"We will show her around and tell her all she needs to know" said Gloria.

"No disrespect, Gloria, but make sure it's not like it sounded with babysitting a kid" said Jade "Gentle friendship; NOT like a big sister, hmm? You know how galling that can be when you ARE a kid sister – and I was guilty of doing it to MY younger sister who's happy to stay at Hogwarts without my interference!"

Confessing to the fault herself won Gloria's support more; as a lecture would not have done. If Jade, a big girl, could admit to a fault Gloria was willing to admit to herself that she could be a little bit interfering!

Jade left them to it, pausing to greet Hester Figg who had just arrived.

"Figgy! Nice to see you, you have two boys in your class, m'brother Seag and James Hubble-Langstaff, and two of dad's wards, Harmony Bloom and Tala Ulwin; Angelica's through there already."

"Well I'm glad there's two; it means they can work together on shared cauldron work so we don't any of us have to partner a boy" said Hester "I don't know how they think at all."

"Well this'll give you a chance to find out before you get old enough to want to snog them" said Jade, who was used to the fifth at Hogwarts engaging in activities like snogging but privately thinking that the girls of Cackle's were most awfully young.

"Jade! What ARE you like!" Hester was scandalised.

"A lot more normal than a bunch of girls brought up sequestered from half of their own species" said Jade bluntly. "At day school it's not so weird because you get a social life out of school hours but in a boarding school it's not entirely healthy in my opinion. Hence the Yule ball; it's a bit of a pain at times but it DOES instil some social graces in us. It also provides the younger ones with targets to hex, point and giggle but that's life and one has to live with it."

"Are we abnormal? I never thought about it, I'm an only child" said Hester "It's nice to be with friends."

"Yes but you never had the chance to meet boys at all then" said Jade "Those with brothers don't find them as scary, but one day you'll want to marry and if you don't know how boys work you won't know how to pick one who'll treat you right and you'll be in the same situation as the more sheltered girls who got used and discarded with illegitimate babies by dad's louse of an uncle" she continued earnestly "He preyed on only children and squibs and lonely muggles you know; my dad finally performed a ritual to curse him to impotence, ably helped by all his children who were old enough. We're rearing one of them, abandoned by both parents."

Hester was most struck; especially as she knew more about squibs than most, her great aunt being one, and having an unusual family that did not marginalise her. But she knew how many families did. Great Aunt Arabella Figg belonged to both the SSS, the society for the Support of Squibs, founded a hundred odd years ago, and SPES the Society for the Promotion of Education for Squibs, founded by Argus Filch with the support of Krait Malfoy-Snape, the acronym being the Latin word for hope.

"Oh" she said "I guess then I'll try to understand them; but it'll be easier at a bit of a distance."

Jade grinned and left it at that.

The fourth were mostly harmless; they were welcoming Helga Von Strang well enough; Helga had decided at the last minute to come to Prince Peak as she had no particular friend in her form, as she just joined the periphery of the group around Lydia or Julia, as did young Stoyan Krumm. Not that she was unhappy; Helga had the capacity for contentment and no imagination at all. But to be with her siblings pleased her. It was a nice small year, having lost two to the fears of contamination by boys and Helga was one of seven. That one was Leticia Villeneuve, a cousin of Achille Crouch-Villeneuve pleased Jade less, as self appointed protector of Helga; but the girl had not distinguished herself in unpleasantness in any way seeming more interested in her schoolwork and doing well in exams than anything else from what Severus had said.

It was at least going to be easy to get to know the whole school; why there were no more of them than in one year at Hogwarts, even with the additions! And that with the numbers having been down for the depredations on the wizarding population of the first lot of the Voldemort years too! In its heyday, Hogwarts had accepted some sixty pupils every year; their generation had rarely seen more than forty. Lionel Dell's year had forty three in it, and Jade's own chronological year had had forty four, many of whom – at least six – were transfers from Rowan House, one was Heather Burns who gatecrashed, as in a way had Ross Tuthill; Corinne Cook had come from another school and Zvetalina Krumm and Seag too were both refugees of sorts. Numbers were now beginning to pick up in the book of those expected but they were being boosted too by goblins though they were still not representative of the population.

When one child in four was a goblin it would reflect the population parameters, or what the 'Daily Prophet' would call the population statistics. Jade however was an arithmancer and she liked to get her terminology correct.

Jade stuck her head into each of two compartments commandeered by the fifth. This was largely a MSGH – not MSHG split with Tala, Seag, Harmony, Hester, Angelica, Bethany and James in one compartment and the rest in the other. Not that there was anything wrong with those who had not joined; they were just a little dubious about it.

They'd join or they wouldn't; nobody had to.

And they were moving; everyone must be aboard.

Jade tapped on the door of the compartment with Wulf and Irmi in.

"Herein" called Wulf.

She went in.

Irmi was snuggled up to her father, her face a study of bliss. That Wulf had told her of his feelings for Jade was reflected in the interested, but wary look she gave the older girl.

"We need to get to know each other Irmi before anything proceeds any further" said Jade, quietly "I also have my NEWTs to study for; it is a breathing space for you to decide if you accept me."

"And what if I can't?"

"Your father will place his daughter before himself of course and walk away" said Jade, swallowing hard, her eyes straying longingly to Wulf "And I will have to accept that."

"I – I would not stop him being happy" said Irmi "But – but if we do not like each other could we be civil for the love of him?"

"Irmi, there's no question but that I am going to love you to bits when you can say something so big and so mature as that, you poppet" said Jade, warmly. "If you offer that, even if you can't like me, I shall be more than content."

"I – I think I'm going to love anyone that daddy loves" said Irmi shyly "He has told me you came looking for me and that you swore to rescue werewolves. Not all of them are very nice though" she said sadly.

"Perhaps between the three of us we can decide which ones are nice and rescue them then" said Jade "And look after them. Now, has he told you about the cure?"

Irmi nodded, hiding fear.

"I – I want to take it" she said.

"We have a special one for you, using your father's blood" said Jade "Because he kindly agreed to be experimented on and donate samples of blood for my dad to study. Also it should not hurt so bad as you're only a teenage werewolf. You change already do you?"

Irmi nodded.

"I always have" she said.

"Ah, that is having two werewolf parents perhaps" Jade said "Tala hadn't changed; she was going to at puberty. She's the one who let dad use her blood for the original cure after Erich, my brother – Professor Von Strang to you in school – did a risky blood ritual and swapped all her blood for his, while we pumped blood replenishing potions and Wolfsbane into him. As dad studies more werewolves who want the cure he learns more; the pain seems at least partly related to how long you've been a werewolf but he thinks that with a specific he's got it down to next to nothing for you. Shall I give it to you now? We've nothing else to do on a train journey and it means you won't be jumpy tonight for tomorrow."

Irmi nodded and rolled up her sleeve; Wulf had obviously prepared her.

Jade had left the cure in this compartment; and got it down from the rack, and injected it skilfully into the little girl. One day there would be a lot of werewolves to inject and Severus had seen that she learned just right.

Irmi gasped and cried out as fur rippled across her body and her face undertook a partial change; then half swooning she slumped back as the fur receded and her face returned to normal.

"The familial specific is a great improvement" said Jade. "You okay our kid?"

"Is – is that IT?" asked Irmi.

Jade waved her wand over her to use Scarpin's revellaspell.

"Seems to be" she said laconically "No more furry little problem; you're an ordinary teenage kid Irmi; if I may make an English pun you're a werewere."

"What?"

"You were a were. Now you aren't" grinned Jade.

Wulf copied Severus' loving rebuke and clipped the back of her head with two fingers.

She smiled at him adoringly and he caught his breath.

And Irmi was hugging Jade and crying.

Jade cuddled her back as she would Lydia if Lydia had been through emotional fire.

"And the fun thing is you can always be a wolf animagus if you like and have fun with the form without being dominated by it" said Jade, as much for something encouraging to say as anything else. "The scents in the air are fantastic! But you are still YOU and you can think and reason as well as in your human body."

"Are you a wolf animagus?"

"I – well I suppose I'm a metamorphagus" said Jade "And I don't think I want to register that with the ministry. I'm logged as a snake animagus and my marauder name is Slink. Of course a wolf or a puma can slink too so I guess it doesn't matter. Marauders are…well we protect and serve and try to get into trouble too. You'll hear the stories."

Irmi clung to Jade.

"Oh you are so good to me!" she said "But how can I call you mutti when you are still at school?"

Jade grinned.

"Well actually I'm in a similar position" she said "The woman I call mum is actually my cousin; she's only eight years older than me actually, but it was enough of a difference for me to adapt to it as she'd cared for me and my sister since we were five and nearly four. And when she married dad he was just everything a dad should be. But I think you should call me Jade and we will be more like sisters, ja?"

"Oh yes!" said Irmi "That will I like very much!"

She fell asleep quite soon after that; the emotional trauma and the physical strain both of reaching the station and of her body's changes with the serum had exhausted her utterly. Jade laid her comfortably lying down and went to Wulf.

He wrapped her in his arms and held her close to him.

"She is safe" he said "And she will not have to change ever again! Oh Jade, what wonders have been wrought in our lives!"

"Would have happened sooner you silly old wolf if you had only spoken up" said Jade lovingly. "Dad knew you know; with legilimensy. But she was safe enough, he read that belief in you and knew that if nothing else they would want her to grow up and breed. He liked you too well to act until you trusted him. I love you so well, my Wulf, but you truly are a grade A class 1 stubborn idiot!"

"I acknowledge" said Wulf. "My loyalties were so torn….. I have had all the proof I need that the man I trusted has betrayed that in the way he acts, thinks and feels. I have learned to hate Gerhardt. He is a sham."

"Tell him so when you write then" said Jade "It may not be too late to shame him into turning away from darkness if he knows how an honourable man feels. Either it will implant a seed of shame or he will despise you as a sentimental fool, as those of utter evil describe those with moral scruples. We will know his reaction by what he does next."

"You are wise love; and I will put my feelings fully and clearly" said Wulf.

And Jade sat beside him and leaned against him for the journey, utterly content!

While the marauders had been collecting Sandalla, Krait got around to talking to Nannerl Schwefel.

Nannerl had seen the other three taken away after they had all been left to kick their heels for a full day; and was then herself left overnight. She was in a state of terror by the time Krait finally came in.

The English witch had no wand visible. Did that mean they did not intend to cast the cruciatus curse?

When Krait waved a negligent hand and summoned herself a chair from nowhere Nannerl recalled anew the duelling team and how some of the Hogwarts duellists had not even bothered with wands. She sweated.

Krait drew up a chair for her too.

"Be seated" she said. Nannerl sat, thankfully, half fainting and firmly put up her chin. She would not give in to any torture however much softened up first! Krait went on, "I wished to discuss with you what you had expected to leave people hopelessly insane including children that was not caused by dementors."

Nannerl caught her breath. The easy questions first; but there was no harm in answering that.

"I thought that 'hopelessly insane' was a figure of speech; that they would have been slipped a confusing and befuddlement draught that would be indiscriminate in who had been confused and befuddled. I thought it was one reason why I had been picked to teach potions in that I might also brew an antidote to the draught for the children and any that Raute wanted to question. It is a simple blend of the wit sharpening potion and the memory draught."

Krait nodded.

"Quite; so you are a potioneer?"

"Yes."

"Under the circumstances a reasonable assumption. We all tend to expect a solution using our own speciality as we see it as the easiest way to tackle a given problem. I have a tendency to think either of a potion or a transfigurational effect…. That was why I kept you; you were visibly shocked by the use of dementors. The others couldn't care. I thought you had a chance of not turning into as callous a bitch as the rest….you're much the same age as Harry and co, a little younger than me; you spoke of the duelling contest. At which we met other callous bitches and bastards who used the unforgivable curses freely. And yet when your fellows do that you are surprised at dementors?"

Nannerl shrugged.

"We are taught to have all means necessary to hand" she said "For the greater good."

"And can it ever be for the greater good to send Dementors against children?"

"I – I cannot see that it is ever excusable for dementors to be used against anyone. The prince cannot have known."

"Maybe not; there again, maybe. If he has not known about the various unacceptable attacks on the children of Hogwarts school then he is not fit to be a leader; two attacks by huorns one accompanied by werewolves and another attack by erklings…"

"Huorns? Erklings? But they eat children!"

"Take an 'E' for effort. "Yes; they eat children. And we fought and defeated them, the little kids dug ditches and filled them with brushwood, huorns are resistant to magical fire but not to the real thing. They are also not resistant to a weed killing potion fired at their roots – feet – whatever. I wasn't bothered about the taxonomy. But Odessa doesn't care. Children are merely soldiers or breeders of the future; or the spawn of the enemy. Little Uschi Heinz was a weapon to stop her brother defecting. Our kids protected and hid her so he could defect. And that was what caused, as revenge, the second Huorn attack; as well I suspect as a mistaken belief that our champion, David Fraser, had left. They forgot he was in the lower Sixth during the triwizard. They could only muster about three dozen that time; that was why they backed them with werewolves."

"Only…you cannot be serious!"

"Can I not? Why not? I was there fighting them; as were most of my stepchildren" said Krait coldly. "Were we not well practised at fighting because of the Voldemort years there would have been casualties beyond a few broken bones and contusions. But we have learned to expect such treachery. We expected the treachery of the agents sniffing around after Uschi; we let the third and fourth collect THEM to hand over to the ministry; it was good practice."

"You still have a ministry? I understood that after Voldemort was defeated, Harry Potter instituted a dictatorship with a few of his friends….." she tailed off as Krait had started laughing in genuine amusement.

"Fraulein Schwefel, you were at the duel. You SAW Harry. Can you really believe that so modest a boy would institute a dictatorship? His friends have to poke him with sticks to get him to express an opinion that might hurt feelings unless he feels strongly about it! We have a council; and Harry is in our minds head of it though I doubt he even realises that; it is made up of a mix of aristocrats, chosen on heredity, and elected members representing all aspects of wizarding society. It seems to work quite well so far; it is a complete change from a regime that believed in pretending first that nothing was amiss then instituting measures so draconian that they might have issued from Voldemort himself. There is a saying; any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and will lose both. It is true. We don't have an ideal government in England; there ain't no such animal! But we think it works well enough. Dictatorship by Harry Potter? Silliest idea I ever heard!"

"It did seem difficult to reconcile…. I wondered if he was a figurehead for his friends' ambitions."

"More believable; except he's as shrewd about his friends as he is modest; but that you can only take my word on. Which of course you will not do. However, that being as it may, I was not planning on talking about the British government; I wanted to see what turns presumably normal German children into callous and cynical bastards and bitches such as your erstwhile companions. That you are taught a creed that emphasises what may be summed up as the ends justifies the means goes a long way to explain that; but tell me Fraulein, how can you wish for an end that is a regime prepared to do such things? A regime that thinks Dementors are fine troops to use? Or erklings? And that, my girl, let me tell you can be proven to be orders from the top; for a wizard saw those erklings through to the forest by Hogwarts and one of the pupils saw him and drew a picture – he is studying magic through art – and the picture was subsequently identified by another prisoner as being someone he called The Prince. Unless you have any other princes that would appear to be Gerhardt."

"He – the prisoner – might have lied to say what he thought you wanted."

"As people do under torture? But we do not use torture. His reaction to the picture was one of immediate recognition. He was legilimensed. Why bother with torture when there are surer methods? Here is a copy" Krait threw down the picture. "The youth involved had never before seen this wizard. I have myself never seen Gerhardt; he ran away when we came to take this place back from the murderers who had killed the headmistress."

"You LIE! You murdered the headmistress and stole the school!"

"That you may have been told; it is not true" said Krait "The Potions Mistress escaped when she found the body of the original head, having worked out that she had been killed by her twin sister. The twin sister who was Gerhardt's grandmother. We returned to rescue the girls and avenge Fraulein Cackle. The real Fraulein Cackle not the bearer of the same name who bore an illegitimate son to Gellert Grindelwald. You can see it in my eyes, girl; I can have the memories of those who were here put in a pensieve if you refuse to believe. Agatha Cackle died fighting Madam Hardbroom the potions mistress; having cast the killing curse she was surprised to find WE have a protective spell against it that reflects it, those of us who fought Voldemort just bounce it; we don't need that spell but Con Hardbroom did. And Agatha Cackle therefore killed herself. Serve the bitch right; she was quite as nasty as that Von Kessel woman."

"I don't like her" said Nannerl "But it's personal; we have history. She was a prefect when I was a first year. Plenty adored her."

"Yes she has the same sort of charisma as your prince; the using kind" said Krait "Able to cynically manipulate young minds that are ready to hero-worship, ready to be led. HE tried to use it on the girls here; and because they were unused to young men they were dazzled. At first. But by the time we got here, the cruelties of Aggie the Awful's followers and the peremptory behaviour of his bodyguard had started to wear that dazzle thin and he was starting to use subtle charms to try to keep it. Because ENGLISH girls are not used to being pushed around and given barked orders especially by men; nor are they used to the discourtesies of the witches that placed their own selfish desires over anything else. They were shocked and not a little frightened by this new imposed regime; because Gerhardt made a fundamental mistake. You can't change the way things are done totally without having people ask questions if they have been taught even the least bit of independence. Poor old Miss Cackle may have been a bit of a silly old moo, but she was still quintessentially English; and that means, she valued the individual. Germans do NOT value the individual; Germans will do what they are told is 'necessary'. Any Brit will ask 'Why?' and if not given a reasonable answer will refuse to obey. You can reason with Britons; you cannot browbeat them. He showed a little more intellect in picking personable looking young witches like yourselves to be teachers; Fraulein Von Kessel is an accomplished charmer of the young and might have succeeded – for a while. But STILL he missed the point that this is an English school. He has never grasped the point that the kids at Hogwarts, even quite young ones, fight the incursions of dark creatures not because they are ordered to; but because they CHOOSE to."

"But why? Why would children choose to fight fearsome things?"

"I'm afraid the answer to that is mostly 'sport'" said Krait. "We almost had a riot from the under thirteens when we wouldn't let them fight erklings; it wasn't fair, they said, what happened if we destroyed Odessa before they had a chance to have a bash, they said. It's a peculiarly British thing I think" she added "Also the equally British concept that it's a damned cheek these foreigners attacking us let's bash them for it. With the second Huorn invasion, the upper sixth and the fifth were furious; it interrupted their revision for exams. Lots of werewolves died from real applications of irritation. It was unfair; and you NEVER do something unfair to a Briton if you don't want retaliation. If it hadn't been right on top of the exams I would not have been surprised had David Fraser led a counter invasion as a punitive mission. But he had a Geomancy NEWT coming up and he was a little busy."

"You teach Geomancy formally? I had to teach myself."

Krait was interested.

"You're a Geomancer? Instinctive or theoretical?"

"Instinctive but I've taught myself theory."

"Well when you've realised what a scheisserkopf your prince is there's a vacancy for a geomancer here; David was going to fit in voluntary classes but a full time geomancer would be handy."

"Excuse me? I am going from prisoner to being offered a job? Isn't that rather an unusual step even for the mad English?"

"It is an offer only when you are ready to think for yourself and stop spouting soundbites like 'for the greater good' even in your own thought" said Krait. "You are not an Odessa type person. You have too much honesty in you and honesty with yourself. You fight the truth I tell you because you do not want it to be the truth. You prefer the beautiful lie of the romantic handsome prince who will restore order to the galaxy – uh, world – and bring in a glorious regime of wonderful peace and fairness. Oh, providing your blood is pure for, what is it, eleven generations, and you're not a goblin or a house elf or any kind of half breed oh yes, and the werewolves, excellent troops but a bit embarrassing now, so let's wipe THEM out; an Odessa officer was overheard – by my daughter – saying to a subordinate that he should not think of werewolves as people and ascribe normal feelings to them as they're only animals. Of course anyone can become a werewolf if they're bitten. Does it change their personality outside of wolf form? Well only to make them feel persecuted. Goblins are the backbone of the manufacturing and financial parts of our society. But does anyone but England let them carry wands? No. We have negotiated with the Swiss Ministry that goblins travelling to and from our school will be exempt from their laws against wand carrying goblins; and the Swiss ministry is doing a fact finding mission into whether to modify their own laws. The Swiss are practical and their goblin population is higher than ours. House elves have a version of the imperious curse tied into their very heritance to make them punish themselves for even disloyal thoughts. How many disloyal thoughts have I provoked in your head against the prince? How many did you have on your own over the dementors? Think about having a compulsion to bang your head on the wall hard or iron your hands or cut yourself or otherwise hurt and maim yourself for EACH of those thoughts. And the regime you follow would probably like to see that in goblins too and muggles."

"Muggles do need controlling though!"

"Why? They are the majority of the population. They have the same range of intellectual capacity as wizards, they have ingenuity to use technology, they invented many of the ordinary everyday items we consider essential and normal – you have a zip fastener in your robe; muggle invention. You squirt doxies with a flit gun; muggle invention. You use a chimney to carry away the smoke of the fires; muggle invention. They also have the same range of emotions as wizards and may be as nice or as nasty as any. There are muggles who will sacrifice their lives to save others; equally there are muggles who will sacrifice others to save themselves. The only difference is in the ability to use the art we call magic. Which they do not understand and fear. And believe me, if you had to suddenly adapt to living in a muggle world and surrounded by technology I guarantee YOU would fear. I was reared as though muggleborn being an orphan of one parent and unwanted by the other; I can manipulate both worlds. I understand both cultures; so I know what I'm talking about! Controlling muggles is not only an infamous concept in terms of its despicable racism it's also the most stupidly dangerous thing anyone came up with. You know NOTHING about muggles or you'd be afraid to suggest it; because muggles have weapons that can negate any magical defence and wipe out whole communities just like that. And once some dickbrained pureblood suggested it, and the actuality of magic was then proved to muggles, they'd listen to the sensitives, those without enough magic to get a spark from a wand but who can see elves and such; and in a regime of such bloodsnobbery where muggleborn don't count, don't think the muggles would discard the idea of having them fight for the muggle side, even if they didn't fully trust them. David Fraser is muggleborn remember. And he made a mockery of the other champions at the triwizard; and was third in the duelling competition when he was fourteen years old. The wizarding heritance his parents carried but did not express is strong in him; as in Hermione Granger-Weasley. Even if it weren't inherently wrong it's a move against self preservation! The ones who believe muggles should be declared beasts are just living in a land of make-belief so foolish it would be laughable if it weren't so frightening that they could get us all killed! Because even as our glorious leaders believe in overkill as a reaction to a problem – after a period of pretending it isn't there – so too do muggles. They have the same psychology as us; which is to react with extreme violence when frightened. If Gerhardt Grindelwald knew as much about muggles as I do, he'd be a lot quieter I can tell you!"

"How can you be frightened of muggles? They can't even use wands!"

"No; but if you're dead from a muggle weapon before you can get off a spell how's that going to help you?"

Nannerl stared.

"But if I saw a muggle draw a weapon I'd just kill him before he could use it!"

"One: would you always recognise a weapon? Two; what if he uses his weapon from beyond the line of your sight?"

"Impossible!"

"Oh? Studied muggle weapons have you? There are weapons that could flatten this mountain from as far away and America. Accurately. Can your wand work detect someone in America pressing a button? I think not. NOW are you starting to appreciate the realities of pissing off muggles? And besides, you seem genuinely fond of children; small children cannot generally use magic. Does that make them inferior? Up to the age of seven, it is impossible to tell a muggle child from a wizarding child. What changes after that save using the art? Does the muggle child become less of a personality? Do they lose some endearing quality? I want you to ponder on such things. We shall speak again; for you have much to learn that has been left out of your inadequate Durmstrang education."

And she left Nannerl to ponder.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

It was almost, Hilda Hubble said, like coming to a new school.

She had a bedroom and study of her own, the first of which she had always had but now it was a privilege. And a sight more comfortable than the old one. She was also allowed a fire.

There was also a prefects' common room with its own little library and a cauldron to brew cocoa or tea.

She spoke as she had promised to Severus too on first arriving about the feeling amongst the prefects that all the marauders should be of their number; and Severus was pleasantly surprised. Accordingly he made the announcement that the prefecture had overruled his attempts to avoid nepotism and that therefore Jade and Senagra were to be prefects too!

They were cheered by the fifth and sixth who had got to know them best and by the first because they were cool.

The three female marauders were already sharing a room and a study; the three upper sixth girls were together perforce and the rest of the lower sixth were divided into Esmerelda with Sylvia as the two other prefects, and the other three. Severus had put Edward in with the three lower sixth boys for the company; and told him that that was open to review if it did not work out. Edward had shrugged, grinned, and said they were hardly likely to be disruptive like a pack of thirteen year olds and that he hoped to learn as much from them as from his books. Severus actually smiled upon him for so reasonable an attitude.

In lower years there was a boys' dormitory and a girls' dormitory; and some of the former still lay vacant or had rather a sparse occupancy. Indeed, Severus placed Sebastian and Adrian together and Seag and James voted to move in with them as well just for a little more company. The first years of course made fuller dormitories of both girls and boys; but it was certainly easier, as the two fifth form boys were prepared to be flexible, to have three boys' dormitories each of reasonable numbers.

Sebastian too had heard that Jade had been moved up and petitioned Severus that if he worked hard might he too get his remove into a class with Adrian.

Severus had nothing against it on principle providing, as he said, the boy did not make himself ill with overwork.

Sebastian had not quite sniffed contemptuously but he came close.

Hillary was bright; and Gloria was too if less of a worker. If their brother was prepared to work there was no reason he should not be capable of pulling up a year and Gloria must either live with that or work for her own remove.

Other than the sixth form common room there were to be three common rooms, junior, middle and senior. Junior was for years one and two, middle for years three and four and senior was for the fifth year as they were an exam year. There were fiction libraries appropriate to age in each and other year members might only visit by invitation. Banning visiting would never work; so a rule to limit it would be better, and prevent wholesale invasion. Any prefect could go into any common room, only a prefect of the appropriate gender could go into a dormitory save under exceptional circumstances.

When Severus read out that rule Albert Jorkins put his hand up and said,

"Please sir, like what?"

"Well Albert, if there was a fire and you were overcome by smoke I should imagine you'd rather be dragged to safety by a girl than not dragged at all" said Severus. "Another actual example; not a prefect but a boy with fine instincts invaded his female counterpart dormitory the other year at Hogwarts because he suspected something had happened to a friend of his. She had been drugged so another girl could take her place with Polyjuice Potion, and the drug was not very well made and came close to killing the other little girl. Common sense is the rule here. It's to stop embarrassment that the rule is made; changing bodies are shy about THEM whichever THEM we may mean. It is a time that likes privacy; and rightly so. This is the reason you have curtained beds as well as for warmth; privacy within conviviality."

The girls once of Cackles like the idea. Many had suffered in cold unfriendly single rooms during their first year; many had been routed out of a friend's bed where they had snuggled together for warmth and comfort in the lonely night.

Naturally the boys thought it gave more opportunities to plot mischief.

The boys of the first soon discovered that they were wrong.

Their plans to make apple pie beds for all the seniors was foiled by Jade.

"You were ratted up" she said, having been waiting for them at the top of the stairs. "If you go ahead and do it now, I shall have to take notice of information laid; though you may be sure I have ticked off the sneak. Don't plot in front of toadying little creeps."

"Fred Visick!" said AHHa in disgust.

"You might say so; I couldn't possibly comment" said Jade. "I explained gently that such an attitude was not looked upon with favour in an English school; I hope he will take that to heart. Please be tolerant this time; and if he doesn't take it to heart, for goodness sake be a little more original than to jinx him into a ball and shove him in the boot locker, that is so passé."

"You mean we should plot something the uncovering of which inconveniences a professor and then not do it?" said Albert.

"You do catch on fast" murmured Jade "Now piss off, I have better things to do than to tell you how to run your dorm."

Fred got something of a cold shoulder from the other boys.

He glowed with virtue.

He was of the belief that he had redeemed himself for ignoring the head's daughter before he knew who she was! She had to talk about sneaking as bad of course but she had obviously caught them at it and given them an impot or they would not be so sore at him!

Jade actually sounded off to Lynx and Senagra that the little creep made her hair hurt with the effort not to whack him. She had no expectation of his improving; he was the kind that grew up to fit the adjective oleaginous. And Florence was no better. That they sucked up to her as headmaster's daughter was something Jade despised to the bottom of her straight little heart.

The classes shook down pretty well on the whole.

Electives were not to be chosen until the fourth this year to give people a wider range to choose from; the current fifth were stuck with what options Severus and his original team had managed to arrange for them, which was still wider than before; and Tala, Seag and Harmony must do as well as they could with more esoteric subjects with private lessons from such of the staff as they could wheedle, or in Seag's case by blaguing a correspondence course out of Professor Khan even as Lynx and Fabian were at NEWT level.

Severus had added Herbology to the compulsory list; it went with potions and was something the children had at least studied a bit of in theory before Ellie had introduced them to practicals. It seemed a shame to waste that. Besides it made arranging the timetables easier.

The entire class had opted for chanting when they discovered that Professor Snape himself was teaching it to OWL; the vision of him on the battlements, hair whipping in the wind and with energy crackling about him on the night of the battle had mightily impressed any of the girls who had seen it; and this year's fifth were amongst the nosier ones. They shared the class with those of the sixth who wanted to take the OWL and though Lynx, Fabian, Senagra, Jade, Jem and Erwin joined them later – Sylvia and Esmerelda having studied the year before too – it was apparent that they were actually well able to keep up, Jade being plainly in an entirely different class. They were to take it at the end of their lower sixth year to free themselves in the final year for their NEWTs; and Jade Snape was, awed whispers went round, taking SEVEN NEWTs, as many as James, Modesta, Mona and Alison were taking as OWLs. When the class learned – from Harmony who adored Jade – that she had eleven OWLs at 'O' grade it bucked up the others who admired Jade to work as hard!

They were the first year who had anything like a chance of taking a standard number of OWLs and they were determined not to let Professor Snape down; he was their hero and to be feared and adored in equal measure.

Miss Bat had been retained for another year just to teach some basics to first years because she had begged hard and sobbed over Severus. As she was using his theory lessons – and had enough professionalism too to come and see his OWL level classes – it was hard to refuse. And she was a kind teacher to the little ones if only the little horrors did not take TOO much advantage of that.

It was AHHa who had the idea of charming liquorice bats to fly out of Miss Bat's piano next time they had a class; his cronies helped with the spells enthusiastically though of course.

Miss Bat was shocked into stopping playing and kept saying "Oh dear me! Oh dear me!" in such a tone of astonishment that Rose sighed and called the bats to her own wand.

"They appear to be liquorice, Miss Bat" she said "Someone has kindly given us sweeties to make our throats better for chanting, shall I hand them around properly?"

"Oh, yes, do my dear" said Miss Bat. "Liquorice? My favourite!"

"Oh you have first pick then Miss Bat" said Rose, firmly then going round the girls first in case there weren't enough and then the more innocuous boys like George and Julian.

"It'll be Hellibore, Miss Bat" said Fred Visick loudly "He was whispering to the other boys."

Miss Bat was an ineffectual teacher – which she was beginning to realise sadly when she looked in on Severus' classes – and rather easily put upon; but she was not a friend to sneaks.

"Don't speak with your mouth full Fred dear" she said "It really is not nice and sounds quite as though you're saying less than pleasant things."

As Fred had somehow missed being given a bat he seethed gently; but Miss Bat smiled on him brightly and it was impossible to suspect the old fool of deliberately mishearing!

AHHa went up to her after the lesson.

"I say Miss Bat, you WERE a sport about the bats and about not listening to sneaks, and please, as you like liquorice I'd like you to have the rest to say sorry for ragging you" he pulled the crumpled paper bag out of his pocket and offered it to her.

"Why thank you, Angel!" said Miss Bat "Let us split them between us as a token of my appreciation of your fair play and honesty. I – I was startled; I suppose little boys play tricks more than little girls."

"No Ma'am I think ours are just a little more brute force" said AHHa. "I've heard stories about girls who can sing deliberately out of tune to put other people off."

"Dear me!" said Miss Bat suddenly remembering an incident of some thirty years previously. "Well, well, children will be children. Don't be too disruptive dear, otherwise brightening up the lesson just occasionally is no harm done."

"THANKS Miss Bat, you're a brick!" said AHHa, kissing her on the cheek.

Miss Bat flushed and looked pleased.

"Run along now do!" she said. AHHa ran. She really wasn't a bad old bat!

Severus was somewhat less happy about what appeared to be some species of prank in his potions dungeon.

Someone had been in his storeroom; jars were rearranged.

He spoke to the school at breakfast.

"Someone has been in my stores" he said "I am deeply disappointed; I have not yet inventoried to see if anything was stolen. It is theft to take ingredients; it is theft from your fellows for whom the ingredients are purchased. If the culprit owns up right away I shall be more moved to be lenient. Gloria? Somehow this surprises me."

Gloria Cantripp had risen to her feet, crimson of face. Her sister buried her face in her hands.

"Please Professor Snape" said Gloria "I haven't taken anything. I just rearranged things neater because I thought your stores should be more ordered."

"Miss Cantripp" said Severus with great self control "YOUR idea of ordered and mine are radically different. I arrange things the way I arrange things for my own purpose; and any true potioneer would understand my system perfectly. Just as any true potioneer would be able to tell me WHY pupils are forbidden from my stores – however pure their motives – and from touching the jars on the shelves. Does a moment's reflections tell you?"

Gloria shook her head.

"No Professor Snape" she said.

"Can anyone else tell me?" he asked "Miss Figg, that was a very prompt response."

"Because you keep things in there that can be dangerous if improperly handled or dropped by idiots" said Hesther.

"Quite so, Miss Figg. Ten points to the fifth. A very full and cogent answer. Miss Cantripp, do you now understand?"

"Yes sir; I'm sorry sir, I didn't realise sir" said Gloria.

"The school rules are not made in order to have a longer list for some arcane pleasure it gives the staff, nor yet even for the deliberate torture of students, though at times the deliberate torture of students is s sublime thought on which to dwell" said Severus "They are there for three main purposes. One, to ensure the safety and wellbeing of the students; two to enforce a degree of civilisation and courtesy between the students and three to ensure the smooth running of the school with the least disruption to the students. You will note that the rules, however irksome at times, are there for YOUR ultimate convenience. If a rule seems odd or unnecessary, I will freely explain its purpose and so too will any of the staff."

"I won't, Professor" said Ron "I just do what I'm told like everyone else; I don't worry about why."

Hermione surreptitiously poked him one side and Percy poked him less surreptitiously the other.

"Professor Ronald will NOT explain rules to you save of quidditch where he is an expert" amended Severus giving Ron a fondly exasperated look. Still it was as well he spoke up; Ron was likely to neither know nor care why any rule had been made and was likely to make up an answer as wild as his divination homework had been wont to be. They had settled on Ron being Professor Ronald as a more formal name than Professor Ron and conceivably a surname in any case. Percy of course was Professor Weasley. Severus went on, "You may sit down Miss Cantripp; I accept your explanation as one of good intent but good intentions are what pave the way to perdition, they say. You will write me out thirty times, 'I will not interfere in what is no concern of mine' by Friday."

"Yes Professor Snape; I'm sorry." She just remembered to bob a curtsey before sitting down.

"Instead of being sorry try thinking another time" said Severus, seating himself.

Idiot child! It made his scars HURT to think of what might have happened!

Gloria did not get away with it so lightly.

Hester Figg hauled her off to the fifth form common room and proceeded to explain to her in no uncertain terms just how Professor Snape had come by his scars and how Madam Malfoy had nearly lost their baby.

That reduced Gloria to tears.

The story spread of course; and Severus was looked upon with even more awe and reverence for having saved a whole school from being burned to the ground with the pupils gassed to death in it.

Severus had never looked on it that way; he had known there was very real risk but it was not something he thought of himself as a hero over, just doing his job.

His pupils thought differently.

There was one rule the whole school DID find irksome in the extreme.

That they were to learn French and German; and that they were to learn it by grammar and rule not merely the quick way. Severus thought it would help them to remember it if they had done some of the hard work; and so two periods a week were set aside to learn the basics. They would then be permitted to learn with magic and from the spring term two days a week were to be devoted to each language.

"We shall expect to be taking those children who are not eligible for Durmstrang" said Severus to explain this new imposition "And we ARE in the middle of Europe. Those are the two main languages used; most people in the world speak one of those languages or English so you will be able to get by almost anywhere except perhaps Latin America. We will offer an English education but we will also offer the courtesy of sharing languages. English will always be used for quidditch as it is the international language of the game." He did not add his doubts that Ron could cope with foreign languages even taught by magic; first thing in the morning, the unkind might say that Ron had difficulty with his own language being reduced to antisocial grunts.

The teachers of the languages did mollify the girls at least, Professor Maxime – who also taught Ancient Runes – being large, good looking and rather romantic with his French accent; and Professor Luytens with a face as grim as Professor Snape's and a long romantic scar was romantic in a different way. Some of the older girls would not have minded a bit of Ooh-la-la with Professor Maxime; Professor Luytens was exciting in being a man of mystery with an obviously colourful past.

For romantic dreams the Professors most thought upon were Bekard, Fraser and Von Strang. The older ones knew that Erich was Severus' adopted son who used the name of his half siblings for easier identification purposes though anyone who had seen inside his personal text books had seen 'Erich Snape' written there in his neat square script. David was a hero anyway; winner of the last Triwizard and Quidditch referee, and like Erich, Krait, Severus, Ellie, Ron and Hermione he bore that mysterious zig-zag scar that was whispered to bounce the killing curse because they were all part of a blood pact with Harry Potter himself. The Professors in question were annoyingly reticent about the whole business, though a few stories did emerge to the MSHG. And there were even, Hilda Hubble announced, two free house elves who bore the same scar.

"They put their money where there mouths are about equality" she said to the other seniors "And we should back that!"

Professor Bekard was quite a quidditch player too; and the school was quietly roused by Sylvia Hubble to go watch some of the professors having a knockabout match; David, Byron Bekard, Ron, Percy, Lee, Severus and Krait being the ones playing, enough for one team.

"We should maybe challenge the staff" suggested Hilda.

It was voted a great idea – but maybe later!

All the newest professors were just a little bit scary; especially those with the scar. There was just something about their eyes that seemed to peer deeply into your soul, and look somehow past the horizon. Jade described it when asked as the 'look of eagles' a description she had got from a muggle book describing those people who had seen and done things most people would never see or do because they had the strength to do and see them.

Jade too had the 'look of eagles' though she did not realise it.

Jade had seen and done things Severus and Krait might have wished that she had not; but Jade, like Lydia, just accepted it as part of the way things had to be.

It did not stop the romantic thoughts though and wondering how they came by the look was often a part of the fantasy. And Krait broke up a fight over who was the most romantic, Professor Fraser or Professor Von Strang with one participant declaring loud partisanship for Professor Bekard.

"For shame, big girls brawling like brats of eleven!" said Krait. "And over what? The rival sexual merits of one happily married man, one happily betrothed man and another who would certainly have no interest in scrubby schoolgirls even though he is unattached!"

"You make it sound so…grubby, Madam Malfoy" complained Pamela Blackwood.

"Isn't it?" said Krait, dryly. "You appear to be treating the Professors in question as prize abraxans on show for their stud ability and I'd not be surprised if you wanted to start examining their teeth and hooves. You disrespect them and you disrespect Madam Devlin Fraser and you disrespect Professor Von Strang's Fiancée. What do we have here, members of both sixths and the odd fifth and all the fourth; ten points from each of your years and I will receive from each of the participants forty repetitions and from those watching and egging them on twenty repetitions of 'her voice was ever soft gentle and low, an excellent thing in a woman' and don't let it happen again. Honestly!"

Romantic dreams of silly girls could lead to serious consequences such as the Ravenclaw girls who had mooned over Sirius and had hurt Willow and later Grace. Let them keep any romantic attachments private from now on to dwell upon pleasurably in the privacy of their own beds until they grew out of it. Krait intended warning Byron and Hercule to keep a safe distance to avoid romance contamination.

Which she did; and Byron laughed heartily and said,

"And look how well that worked for Severus!"

Krait rebuked him with two fingers; Byron was a luminary of the MSHG from relatively early on and one might be easy with him.

"You'll know if it's true love not lust with romantic unrequited dangly bits" she said "It's not unhealthy for them to lust from afar; gets that bit of growing up out of the way. But having them brawling over various of you boys I WILL not have!"

"The fourth are worse zan their elders" said Hercule "Zey smirk and giggle and make much of 'aving a French girl in ze class 'oo 'elp zem."

"As it happens it was two of the fourth I caught fighting" said Krait "The Tugwood twins. Amy for Erich and Ellen for David. Pam Blackwood is a Byron fan…..dammit I should have set them Byronic poetry not Shakespeare."

"What, the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about?" said Byron snidely "Thanks, I'm quite happy NOT to be talked about by fourth years or even lower sixth."

"Wrong poet" said Krait. "That's Oscar Wilde. More that they admire the laughing devil in your sneer."

It would, Krait hoped, pass when they got more used to being surrounded by good looking heroically scarred young men.

In the meantime it was a pain.

Byron Bekard declared half an intention to copy an idea the Malfoy twins never actually carried out of going to the Yule Ball in drag with Hercule.

Hercule laughed uproariously and said what a pity it was they were grown up now and could not really get away with it.

All of which interest in romance masked neatly Jade's own romance with Wulf.

They were holding back from going too far as yet; stolen kisses and the joy in each other's scent must do for them, the rules they imposed on themselves being to remain strictly clothed at all times and never to get horizontal anywhere.

They still managed some rather heady and erotic moments that left them drained with passion clinging to each other and crying each other's names; and then they would hold each other close, the love greater in its intensity than the lust that they knew better than to deny but had to control.

Both had learned an implacable will of iron; Jade long since in the orphanage, long before she had needed it in the face of Voldemort's cohorts; and Wulf in holding his changing off for as long as he could until he could be safely away from any humans in the times when a mission was at the full moon.

And at that their moments of controlled lust were probably more satisfying to them and more exciting for having to be curtailed, able to dwell on the time when they might be together completely.

And they were friends.

And it was good to run together in the MSHG with others too; and to just smile at each other across a room or across the courtyard.

Jade's German was fluent of course; she needed no lessons, for she had learned early from Erich, Erwin and Helga. French she was fluent at too, learned at Mimette's knee as would the babes. Erwin and Helga's mother was Severus' pensioner here too to help with babies, and they would learn German from her and from Hermione's free house elf Rosli who adored Penelope and loathed Durmstrang, Odessa and all their collective works.

It was helpful when they went out walking, for Jade would just chatter away to any local Austrian folk they met, leaving a good impression of the English school on the mountain and its nicely behaved jungen and madchen. Often on the early run they would meet people of the high pasture who would return to the village soon, for such was the nature of alpine farming; to take the herds to the high pasture from May to October for the sweet alpine grasses and herbs to enrich the milk. Unlike Miss Cackle, who had been deeply suspicious of foreigners, Severus made a contract to buy milk and cheese directly from the locals and at a good price; the friendship of their local muggles was as great a shield as the inaccessibility of the castle for any strangers asking questions would meet with polite but not especially informative answers if they seemed overly nosy, and moreover one of the friendly cowherds would mention it.

There were charcoal burners too in the forests surrounding the peak; and Wulf and Jade had happened upon some one day who asked outright if they were of the zaubervolk of the castle, magic folk.

They did not seem unfriendly about it so Jade admitted it.

The leading charcoal burner nodded, spat and tapped his nose.

"We don't mention what we see" he said. "Always been zaubervolk in the castle; never troubled us and we never troubled them. The ones that come with the green flashes, they be the ones that send the wicked wolves, not good wolves. The one with robes that spies, we watch him."

"Will you show us where he is?" asked Jade.

"Yes little wolf maiden; I will" said the man.

He really had seen more than they had realised.

The spy had moved into a tumbledown shack of a charcoal burner's hut.

"Old Karl died" said their friend, who gave his name as Friedel. If he had another name he did not seem to use it.

They had approached from the forest and Jade said,

"Will it bother you if we change form?"

"Wolf Madchen, Wolf Lord, I would be honoured and will treasure your trust in my heart" declared Friedel.

They changed; and crept up on the hut, inch by inch on their shaggy bellies.

And they were at the door, changing back and kicking it in.

"HIM!" said Jade; it was the officer who had spoken so disparagingly about Irmi.

And Wulf was back in wolf form, ripping out his throat.

Jade went back to Friedel.

"That man held Wulf's thirteen year old daughter hostage" she explained.

"Then it is proper that he does what is necessary" said Friedel calmly. "I wondered if it were personal."

Wulf returned having washed himself in the hut.

"I am sorry; Severus might have wanted to question him" he said.

"He was never high in the hierarchy; else he had not needed to push his subordinate around so" said Jade "He was sent as punishment for losing Irmi methinks and to see if he might spy her or you."

"He spied me" said Wulf, with a lupine grin "And he was very surprised about it too."

"I will burn the hut shall I?" said Friedel.

"If you would be so good" said Jade "For your trouble if I may… it is our money but it is pure metal" and she slipped him a few galleons.

"It is not necessary, little maiden."

"If you do not wish to spend it keep it for your family; to show one of those coins at the castle or any such Zauberhaus will guarantee you a hearing; and to then to request a favour for a favour is within our law."

"Then I thank you wolf maiden" said Friedel simply.

They reported back to Severus of course.

"Well we must watch out for others" said Severus "and remember these strangely phlegmatic charcoal burners. They are deeply superstitious in such places as these; often negatively for us. But charcoal burners are marginalised people; I suppose all folk are alike to them and they judge on how they are treated only. We have made good friends I think."

"It is good" said Wulf "And good to KNOW that you will protect these muggles who have been such friends. Unlike Odessa who would spurn friendship in the first case; and certainly not honour the ties of loyalty to any but their own."

"And speaking of ties" said Severus "It is time to bring you into the blood group my friend; for you will be one of our own and the singing of the blood together will protect you and bring you closer to Jade."

"And Irmi?"

"Irmi shall make her own choice. Once of the group then it is hard to connect with anyone outside it; Jade had been very patient, for I feel her longing for her blood to sing with yours. If she wishes to fight for werewolf rights and cures she may find it makes her task easier; Jade shall explain it to her."

Jade nodded.

Irmi looked up to her; but it must be the little girl's free choice.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

Jade explained the implications of the Blood Group to Irmi.

"Wulf is joining because we shall work better together; and because I know the closeness it brings" she said "But you have the choice not to if it scares you."

Irmi put her chin up firmly.

"I want to be part of it. I want to fight too. I can. And I will" she said.

Jade embraced her.

"And then we'll really be sisters in a way too" she said.

It was a quorum that joined; but that was enough. And Jade felt Wulf's blood finally singing with hers; and the look of wonder on his face showed that he felt her as never before, knew her as never before; and was awed.

Irmi too was filled with wonder as she could now appreciate how deep were her fathers' and Jade's feelings for each other, and appreciate how deep the love was for Jade that could reach to someone outside this sense of belonging.

And Jade gave a sudden yodel.

"What?" said Severus mildly being used to his rather sudden womenfolk.

"Blood from the blooded ex werewolves made into serum" she said "It wouldn't be whole blood so it wouldn't join them to us but it has the magical effects of all of us in it, would THAT improve it? If it does you could magically multipy it for supplies."

"I – yes it's worth a try" said Severus "we need the odd volunteer werewolf."

"Meh" said Jade "Soon get that I should think; in the new year we'll go steal a few."

She and Wulf and Irmi were mapping the compound and filling in all they knew about the residents in preparation for a raid.

It would take time; but they had bought time with their terror tactics.

Which was as well, because ordinary life went on.

"I know lots about what those rough boys in the first are up to, Jade" said Fred Visick.

"Do you now" Jade's voice was NOT encouraging.

"They want to form themselves into a secret society and call themselves The Marauders. That sounds bad, doesn't it?"

"It's normal to wait to be invited to be junior marauders" said Jade, absently, who was trying to do a tricky piece of arithmancy for Hermione and was silently cursing her to perdition for unnecessary cruelty.

"What do you mean, Jade? I say that looks difficult, my arithmancy's awfully difficult, I should think that for warning you about dangerous secret societies I deserve some help with my homework."

Jade put down her quill with a bang.

"Visick, if you came into my study to whine about needing help with your homework there's nothing doing. The point of homework is for a Professor to see how much you have failed to understand. I don't mind spending time discussing a particular principle you have failed to grasp if you ask outright for that but that's different. And I CERTAINLY would not help as some kind of reward for a nasty little piece of sneaking about something you have no understanding of. You're a moderately disgusting article, Visick, and I want you to get into your head that I loathe and despise sneaks. If you were genuinely concerned that there was danger in the desire for the AHHa gang of brats to be Marauders you'd have worded it differently. For your information, Marauders stand for school and justice as well as perpetrating pranks. That's why my father – who was a Marauder in his time – imported a group of senior Marauders from Hogwarts. Because of the dangers from Odessa."

"My dad says the ministry has made up Odessa to scare people."

"Then you can write and tell your dad that whilst he's probably right to be chary about trusting the ministry this is something that people in the know have been trying to get the Ministry to take notice of for a long while; and the COUNCIL knows it exists, several council members have fought Odessa. Ask anyone from Hogwarts if two incursions of Huorns and one of erklings was made up or imagined by the entire staff and pupil base; I've fought huorns and werewolves at Hogwarts. Odessa exists and their avowed desire is to infiltrate English schools to control the future of England. And while your dad is safe at home speculating on the rubbish they print in the 'Prophet' some of us are ready to put our lives on the line so that people like him and you can be safe to whine about things. Now go away; I have homework too and I don't want it interrupted by sneaking little busybodies."

Fred was hurt.

He was only trying to help.

He burst into tears.

"I was only trying to help!" he said "Why are you rotten to me when I try to help?"

"C'mere brat" said Jade, with a sigh. Hermione would just have to accept that being a prefect and a marauder sometimes took precedence over her subject. She'd probably consider it heresy but tough.

Fred dragged his feet over to Jade; and was surprised when she put a kindly arm around his shoulders.

"I don't understand" he said "Dad said we were to be good and make ourselves useful and we might get on better!"

Jade sighed.

"I reckon – at least I hope your dad didn't mean by sneaking" she said "Being good and making yourself useful doesn't mean ratting people up you know! One of the things about being at school is learning to make friends and being loyal to your friends. If a friend is about to do something stupidly dangerous and risk their life or someone else's then it is proper to rat them up because then it isn't ratting up, it's trying to protect them either from injury perhaps death, or from having the serious harm to another on their conscience. I gather the story of dad's burns has got around; if you knew someone intended ferreting in his stores, telling a prefect THAT would be a good thing. And a prefect, note you, not a teacher, because it's better to stop such things semi officially rather than make it official. If someone whipped some, oh, gillyweed, from a jar during lessons because they'd taken a dare to swim in the reservoir it's technically theft but a theft that's not really counted. They would be punished it caught but it's up to the authorities to catch and punish them not up to their classmates to tell. You would be doing better in that case if you said to the person who whipped stuff that they weren't being straight and should leave a few sickles to cover what they took. Do you understand?"

"I – I think so" said Fred, struggling. He leaned into the cuddle.

Poor little sod, thought Jade, reckon him and his sister don't get much warmth at home. And presumably their dad wasn't much of a dad if he gave them that sort of pep talk. He reminded Jade suddenly of Percy Weasley before he realised what the important things in life were; lonely and desperate for attention from authority figures to make up for having pushed his parents aside in shame of their poverty and Arthur's eccentricity. This kid didn't know enough to be ashamed of what sounded like rather inadequate parenting.

"Look here, Fred" said Jade "You and Florence haven't made a good start because you've gone about it all wrong and got yourselves all unpopular. I want you both to join the MSHG and we'll see that we teach you the RIGHT way of helping out and making yourselves useful if you really want to. Deal?"

"I thought it was just physical jerks and extra lessons" said Fred.

Jade laughed.

"It's a great deal more than that" she said "We run, yes; we run because physical fitness helps to sustain spells. Those of us who took part in a ritual that involved eight hours non-stop chanting were glad of that stamina, I can tell you; and most of us, including dad, just passed out at the end of it and slept twenty hours straight. No, you won't be involved in anything like that, you needn't look so aghast; it was a strictly volunteer thing. Madam Granger was part of it too, incidentally, and Professor Fraser; Professors Ronald, Devlin and Von Strang were equally important looking after us and making sure we drank between phrases and the like. But even for smaller rituals that you might be involved in – by the time you're old enough there might be a chanting NEWT for example and I imagine the practical for that would be stiff, we're required to do an hour long chant for the OWL – and that might be handy to be fit. The fitter you are the easier it is to do certain spells that require energy. But even so, you don't HAVE to run you know. After the run, we chat; yes, there are things taught, some for fun some because someone has a problem. Adrian Petrescu is Asthmatic; the run strengthens his lungs, he's building up slowly, and we taught him how to cast non verbally so he can cast the medical spell _Apneo_ on himself. I demonstrated some medical transfiguration to those who were interested to sort out Granville Jorkins' arm, because that's a speciality of mine. Rose Hubble burns easily in the sun so we worked out a potion that would be a sun block for her and fell to the rather silly but highly amusing speculation of how strong we'd have to brew it for a vampire. T'isn't serious all the time; and we have cocoa and crumpets while we chat. And mum has a bit of a moan that the baby's lying right on top of her bladder – you had noticed that she's pregnant of course?"

Fred goggled.

"Who's your mum?" he asked.

"OH! Sorry, I thought it was common knowledge; Madam Malfoy she goes by in school, like Erich, Professor Von Strang going by his name before he was adopted, three Professors Snape would be a little confusing. In the MSHG we're all on first name terms; and one of the rules is, you don't take advantage of that in school and you keep perfect discipline in school even though you can be more informal out of. Like I'm always formal to Professor Snape, Professor Malfoy and even Professor Von Strang in school as if I've never had pillow fights with my brother Erich, you see. You MUSTN't take advantage; it's one thing of two that'd really get you kicked out of the MSHG. The other of course is betraying your fellows."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, if someone related a problem in the MSHG, in confidence because it's one of the things it's for, you see, that, say, their parents hurt them badly – it's happened – and you then went and blabbed about that in school that would be a betrayal. Or you learned, say, that someone had a secret, and you used that secret to get them into trouble. That's a betrayal. My dad developed a cure for werewolves; but suppose he hadn't and we had a kid who was a werewolf, and the MSHG was helping him or her to cope; and someone was mean enough to write to those parents who didn't know enough to be anything but rampantly stupid against the poor brat – remember, it's a disease, not a choice – and demanded the child be removed that would be a betrayal. The original Marauders were set up to protect such a boy. He's been cured now; he volunteered to be an experimental subject. One reason dad developed the cure was because Remus is HIS friend; dad is of that generation of marauders. They started the tradition of getting into mischief so Remus could have fun as a normal schoolboy, to give him some joy in life to help him forget his awful condition. They became animagi to be with him in the time he had to change – back then even the wolfsbane potion hadn't been invented – and that's what being a marauder is about. Going that one step further for the vulnerable kids in the school. And I'm sorry I should have realised earlier, it's you and Flo because you're so desperate for approval you do things that actually has the opposite effect. Do you get so little attention from your parents?"

"It's because of Lawrence" said Fred "They straightened his spine in St Mungo's when he was born but it had damaged the nerves or something so he's paralysed from the waist down. Mum has to give most of her time to him. Dad's a healer but he can't find a way to sort it out he spends all his time researching. It isn't fair."

Whether it wasn't fair that Lawrence was unable to run and play, or that he took all his parents time Jade suspected that Fred could not say; and that it was probably both in equal measure. He did not have resentment in his voice towards the boy; indeed he seemed to love him.

"How old is he?" asked Jade.

"He's six" said Fred "poor little man"

"Hmmm" said Jade. "My dad has a friend who's a unicorn who will donate blood for good causes; that will cure anything. I'll get my dad to write to yours, ok?"

Fred flung himself on her and hugged her.

Jade managed some sympathy for Mr Visick; worrying about a paralysed child he probably did not have the time or energy to worry about something that seemed as nebulous as Odessa. Particularly, as she suspected, if as a healer he had performed the medical transfiguration on the child and blamed himself – rightly or wrongly – for the damage to the spinal cord.

That too could put strains on the marriage.

Jade sent for Angel Hallow-Hellibore.

"I haven't done anything yet!" he said sounding injured.

"Apparently you have a guilty conscience over what you're planning however" said Jade dryly "TRY not to display that to a prefect or a Teacher; we might feel it behoves us to dig deeper. You're not actually in trouble; but I heard you and some of your disreputable friends were thinking of trying to be accepted as Marauders."

"You have to be accepted?"

"You have to be invited my laddie buck, by us seniors" said Jade grimly "Because there's a serious side to Marauding. Let me tell you a tale" and she related the origin of marauding.

"So it's about supporting friends as well as having fun?"

"Yes; and about more than that too. It requires a sense of responsibility. Some of the original marauders made mistakes in being so hearty and so busy having a good time that they forgot that more people were vulnerable than Remus. Their japes were directly responsible for making two people so miserable that they fell for the wiles of Voldemort and became deatheaters."

AHHa gasped.

"Oh! Maybe we're NOT ready then; that's an awful responsibility!"

"Scared?"

"Yes."

"Good. You might well have what it takes then. Being a marauder is about accepting the scariness of the responsibility; supporting the weakest; and fighting evil wherever you find it. As we fought for this school; your sister will have told you."

"Gosh! I – we'd have to discuss it."

"Yes; it's not a decision to take lightly. And THEN you have to prove yourselves to us too. But whether you try for being marauders or not, I hope you'll always stick by marauding principles to help the weak?"

AHHa nodded.

"Oh yes!"

"Do you know who the most vulnerable children in school are right now?"

He shook his head.

"Adrian's had problems but he seems all right, and he's a big boy, it'd be a bit cheeky."

Jade grinned.

"Hasn't stopped some of us before now; I leaped in with both feet at a sixth former when I was a weevil. Ineptly I have to say, but it turned out all good in the end. And her little brother's a marauder. No, the most vulnerable kids are Fred and Flo. They have a very good reason for trying to gain approval and no idea how to do it which is why they sneak. I'm not going to talk about it; if either of them tell you, that's their business, but it's not your business unless they make free of it to you. And THAT's a marauder thing too, keeping confidences. I want you and your gang to try to be nice to them; I've told Fred to come to the MSHG and bring Flo, and they'll need welcoming. Can you lot do that?"

"We'll do our best Jade, but they don't make it easy."

"The best things in life are never easy AHHa. It wasn't easy for my dad to be a marauder under cover pretending to be loyal to Voldemort to pass back his secrets so we could kill him, risking the cruciatus curse if he so much as said the wrong thing or looked the wrong way, risking being killed horribly if Voldemort found out. Being mistrusted by some of the forces of good because they suspected he was truly Voldemort's man. But he did it. Being a Marauder is a lifelong commitment. Being a good person is a lifelong commitment. All evil needs to triumph is for decent folk to stay silent. I'm asking you to go further than just being decent folk ignoring the rest of the world's problems so long as you don't cause them – which is my definition of ordinary folk who count themselves decent – even if you can't go as far as marauding. I think you have it in you; and I can tell you which of your group also have it in them. And it isn't all."

"Who?"

"Sandalla, Julian and the Jorkins twins. George and Rose are nice kids but unless I'm mistaken they can't hack it. They'd need a lot of soul searching."

"There's a mystery about Sandalla"

"Yes; and she's been forbidden to discuss it. If you all become marauders it will be proper for her then to share; and even if you decide to try for it you'll be watched and assessed by us older ones for a goodly time; a year round or more. There are things we like you to be over thirteen to participate in; what we designate as the age of discretion. Some have reached it before then. It's a guideline not a rule. My sister and I were five and six; because it was for our protection."

"It's to do with the scar, isn't it?"

"Partly. Not all who bear the scar are Marauders; not all Marauders were involved at the time to bear the scar. Some older Marauders do not bear the scar for very good reasons, and one of the excuses is having died before it happened. Have you been to the Head's office ever?"

"Yes but only running messages I wasn't in trouble" said Angel virtuously.

Jade grinned.

"A first for you I'm sure" she said "There are two portraits. One is a former Headmaster of Hogwarts – the one who has his back turned because he's still sulking over being made a convenience of – and James Potter, the dead Marauder. Just so dad can chat to him. And to keep in touch with the marauders in Hogwarts who also have a portrait. If you get accepted you will learn Marauder secrets. Feel free to try to uncover them; ingenuity in such matters as discovering secret passages is considered good marauder training."

"There are secret passages here? Wow!" said AHHa.

"You mean you hadn't assumed an old castle would have them and hadn't started looking? Shame on you!" said Jade who intended, with the other marauders, to look for any that they had NOT installed as soon as she had time!

"Well we can start THAT all right!" said Angel "Can I go now? Only I have arithmancy tomorrow and I left it to the last minute…."

"Run along then" said Jade "And you can give Fred a hand with his because he's in a muddle with the excuse of discussing it through as a class, right?"

"Right!" said Angel cheerfully.

Severus visited the Visicks with a vial of unicorn blood, assuring them it was freely given; and they were ready to try anything.

It would still be a long hard struggle for the boy to learn to walk again and to develop wasted muscles; but it could be done. And the parents were ready to do whatever was necessary.

Severus called the twins to his office and explained that though Lawrence was cured it was still a long time from when he would be well; but that they could help him with exercises and praise him for working hard when they were home. He explained carefully that Lawrence would have to go through all the stages a baby goes through, potty training himself as well as learning to walk; and if he had accidents they could be casual about it so as not to embarrass him.

It was not something that had occurred to them; as Severus thought it might not.

Such a condition was almost unheard of in the wizarding world where magic could fix almost anything. But the coincidence of the way the twisted spine had laid had sheered the spinal cord catastrophically; and Severus suspected that only the best of the best of medical transfigurers could have straightened the spine without some damage. And had said so to Mr Visick to assuage the man's guilt.

Soon the Visicks would be able to spend more time with their elder children; and with that and the MSHG to help them out there was no reason they should not turn out as perfectly reasonable children.

Nannerl Schwefel had still not admitted to being at odds with her prince; she was a thoroughly miserable young woman though her captivity was comfortable enough.

She did not want to accept the terrible truth in what Krait said; and consequently hunched in the corner pretending to ignore Krait when Krait came to see her.

Krait ignored being ignored, brought her sewing, and proceeded to chat inconsequentially in a monologue about the happenings of the school, good, bad, funny and outrageous – such as AHHa and his band deciding to climb up inside the chimneys in search of secret passages before the fires were lit for the winter and the disembodied howl that had startled Severus of 'help I'm stuck and some idiot is burning things and [coughing noises]'. The idiot who was burning things was Severus who was using the fireplace to get rid of a load of superfluous history notes he had found in a cupboard having been irritated by notes about not teaching THIS because it was nasty or THAT because it wasn't nice. He dowsed the fire and cast _apneo_ up the chimney and informed the stuck individual – which was George – that he might work on becoming unstuck since if he got IN he could therefore get OUT and be in his office, clean, in ten minutes and that he would light the fire again in minutes two to give him some incentive.

George, and the rest of AHHa's gang duly presented themselves in not too sooty a condition with the ingenious explanation of wanting to check that no Odessa agents could sneak down the chimneys. Severus sentenced then to read Leon Garfield's 'December Rose' and also 'The Water Babies' to appreciate how lucky they were to have the leisure to do what once muggle children had had to do for their survival with the homily that in some parts of the world child labour still survived.

'The Water Babies' was not universally appreciated but Leon Garfield became a new author of choice for the first years.

Nannerl pretended not to listen, but secretly she waited eagerly to hear what exploits had been perpetrated during the time between visits. She was genuinely fond of children and enjoyed hearing about what they got up to; she felt she was beginning to know some of the more ubiquitous spirits and longed to meet them for real.

But it would have meant betraying all she believed in, all she associated with being who she was.

Krait sympathised, though she did not let that show.

One day Nannerl would be betrayed into making a comment instead of affecting indifference; and then they would be a stage further forward.

Jade, Lynx, Senagra and Fabian were exploring for secret passages a little more scientifically. Jade had showed them the passages that had been installed – which was almost anticlimactic, as Lynx said – together with a carefully installed secret room complete with fidelius charm like the one at Hogwarts, its own water supply from an aquifer below and preservation cupboard. Their copy of the 'book of wickedness' was to be stored here, and the copy of Severus' annotated 'Advanced Potion Making' and here they made their own marauders' map of this castle.

One of the points of making an accurate map of course was to discover any unnaturally thick walls that might conceal passages; and they put their backs into the geomancy required.

One obvious feature was a very wide spiral staircase.

It took a while of exploration to actually discover its secret; and then only when they went onto the roof to look at it from above.

"That's rum" said Lynx "There's a chimney pot where the staircase is."

"You mean there's a hidden room and a chimney runs up inside the staircase?" said Fabian.

"What a lot of ornate knobs" said Senagra "Why don't we…." And she started fiddling with them.

The chimney was a false one; and swung aside to reveal a staircase INSIDE the other staircase.

It was narrow and precipitate and looked unsafe so of course they all promptly went down it.

What they discovered was that a stair on every level from the outer staircase swung aside to allow egress onto it; it took more investigation to find the narrow groove that opened from the outer staircase onto the inner.

It was not always the same stair in the same position which they thought most ingenious. It had to be learned and could not be deduced as there was no arithmantic pattern.

The staircase ran deeper than the original, right down below the castle into a series of chambers which appeared to have been prepared to take refuge in; there was even an armoury though the weapons would need a lot of care to restore. Jade declared them to be fourteenth century and the others were not about to argue with her knowledge.

Passages took them even deeper and had to be abandoned for another day's search; they picked Saturday because, as Lynx said, they might then skank sandwiches and apples off the house elves and tell the authorities that they were having a picnic, a perfectly authorised way to eat at the weekend for the Sixth, one of their privileges. Lower forms were required to have a prefect with them to picnic, and the Marauders had variously indulged each year by taking them out for the same.

The passages were a little damp; and the reason for this became apparent when they reached the limestone caves with stalactites and stalagmites and the underground river.

"We follow the river only for now" said Jade "And I vote we map the tunnels and caves separately on a different map. These sorts of places can be veritable labyrinths that you can lose yourself in, going right into the bowels of the earth. I expect there's several ways in too, and that makes it a potential vulnerability as well as a potential strength."

"Severus was lucky to miss it when he drove the bolt hole" said Fabian.

"He never went as deep" said Jade "The well goes down to the water table but the passage leads off it, and from the flag under the table in the heads' office but it goes to the bottom of the cable car where the rack and pinion rail starts that goes to the main muggle line and our magic line that uses the muggle line for a way. This is way below that, and I think it's below the alpine pasture."

"I say, there's the falls that comes rushing out of the mountain just above the muggle village, do you suppose that's where this river comes out?" said Senagra.

"Shouldn't be surprised" said Jade "Wow, look at those galleries up there, kind of all Hans Rudi Geiger like twisted bones of long dead giants of the kind that make real giants look puny!"

"Gruesome!" giggled Lynx. "There's light coming in there, look!"

They flew across the river and up to the gallery where light filtered through.

Had not the sun been at the angle it was they might have missed it.

It was a stiff climb up the chimney-like hole with water splashing round them; and they emerged in the forest where a playful brook laughed its way into a sink-hole through a narrow cleft in a rock they could barely wriggle through.

They marked its position carefully.

It might come in handy one day. They ate their tea in the thin autumnal sunlight, probably the last fine weekend they might expect; and returned to the cleft.

"It'll take all winter to explore" said Jade with satisfaction "Give us something to do."

"We need to tell Severus though" said Fabian "So he won't worry when we disappear for hours on end."

"And for its tactical merit" said Lynx.

"And I think we should go back now" said Jade "We may want to give some thought to hiding where the passages become caves, you know; and maybe then get the locals to open it to the public. Apart from bringing them some revenue it'd spike Odessa's guns to have the place crawling with muggle tourists; and they'd never think we'd let them in if there WAS a secret passage."

"That's actually not such a stupid idea" said Lynx "The double bluff kind of thing. And our muggles even more pleased with us. They're already getting tourists to look at the rack-railway, you know?"

"Lumme" said Jade "I forgot steam trains get some muggles all excited. I grew up with them. I s'pose calling the trains 'Culdee' and 'Harry' after the ones in the Reverend Awdry books would excite some people but what else do you call them? And Harry honours Harry too."

"It's handy that we just wait for each carriage to be taken up" said Fabian "Two for each engine".

"It's a sight easier than having to lug cauldrons and trunks up the hill as we'd otherwise have to do" said Jade "And in front of muggles too. Far better to pretend to be railway enthusiasts and build it for the school but also for fun. Tourists are camouflage."

"I was scared it was going to roll backwards off the mountain it was so steep" said Fabian.

"Idiot!" said Jade "It's a rack railway!"

"And that means what then?"

Jade stared.

"Don't you know how it works? That's why there's the third rail, the rack rail, with rack and pinion; if the train rolls backward the brakes – and there are brakes in the coaches too – come automatically on, the pinion locks in the rack and you can't move. You have to manually hold the brake off with main strength to be able to roll backwards. And there's a brake for driver and guard too, an extra one, if they feel they need it. It's the safest railway in the world."

"Well how am I supposed to know that?"

"I can see YOU never read the engine stories. We have them in the nursery so the kids can grow up with muggle tales as well as wizarding children's fiction. After all, anthropomorphised trains are no sillier than having a meaningful conversation with plimpies like in 'Mafalda and the Lake Kingdom'.

"Mafalda's a bit wet really" said Lynx "Sorry, no pun intended" as people groaned. "I mean she moans a lot and doesn't see her way out of things; she's dim, but not always."

"Sign of a bad author" said Jade "when you give your hero or heroine variable intellectual ability to make a plot device and have them act illogically and go off without telling anyone just to move the story on. CASSIE you recall leaves a note for her friends when she's tracking the supposed dark wizard but Ruth's cat chews it to a pulp. And that's not unrealistic, don't you recall Tamsin Clintock's Kneazle ate four inches of her homework once?"

They giggled.

"We've heard about it but it was before our time, remember?" said Senagra "Kinat wrote home about it, because he thought it was hilarious. And just as well it was Hagrid's homework and he believed her!"

"Anyway, we have a program of work to engage in" said Jade.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

AHHa had spoken to his group of friends quite seriously and suggested they all consider the implications of marauding.

"How many are you allowed in a group then?" asked Julian.

"Dunno. The Marauders here are four; Jade listed four other people and me they thought might end up Marauding. It doesn't mean, whoever Marauds, that we stop being friends as a group; but it means those who pick it get to do serious stuff like fighting dark wizards. And I guess we need to think if we will or not."

"I will" said Sandalla "My whole family is ready to fight dark wizards; I'd let THEM down if I wasn't ready to."

This was the most she had spoken about her family so the pronouncement was given due respect.

"Jade Snape is a Marauder; she fixed my arm where the doctors muttered about difficulties" said Granville "I don't believe she KNOWS what impossible is. Wouldn't it be so cool to be able to feel like that?"

"So long as we accept there's going to be uncomfortable things too I guess" said his twin. "I don't want to be left out."

"Look I know more about Marauders – and other heavy dark arts fighting stuff – then any of you" said George seriously "After all, we grew up as the Snapes' wards; we've seen them fall into bed drained beyond exhaustion from rituals so mighty that no group of wizards in their right minds would attempt them. And we've seen them achieve amazing things; Abraxus Malfoy's wife used to be dead but they brought her back from being a ghost to being a girl again and she finished at school and married him. And it might be a heady thing but it frightens me too much. I'll help look for secret passages and play pranks but I'm not going to be a marauder, thank you very much. Jem – m'brother – nearly joined Lynx and co but he decided not to and I don't think he's ever regretted it."

"Oh dear, and I don't think I could cope with all that responsibility to other people" said Rose "I have enough trouble getting myself together sometimes."

"You're kind and sweet to people though" said AHHa "And that's a lot more important. Julian? You haven't said anything."

"I was thinking deeply, that's why" said Julian. "Justin never was close enough to Harry to be part of their special group; I think sometimes he regrets that a bit. I'm Fabian's cousin too and from names we've had bandied around in MSHG marauding seems to run a bit in family lines. Which kinda makes me feel that I have a right to try for it; and also to fulfil what Justin never was part of. Familial responsibilities; that make sense?"

"Yeah, sorta" said AHHa "But only if you feel you WANT to and can."

"Oh I want to; I just wondered if I should" said Julian "If I was entitled."

"WE don't have any marauding family" said Albert. "What about you, Sandi?"

"I have Malfoy connections" said Sandalla "Does that count?"

"I'd think so" said Julian "I might be being daft here….could we ask Jade?"

The upshot of which was Jade sitting on the place of honour – the most comfortable trunk in the box room where they were meeting – trying not to resent a missed romantic interlude with Wulf and explaining that whilst if often followed in families it didn't have to.

"The original Marauders were James Potter, Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew and Remus Lupin" she said "Dad was a later addition to them. It's a complicated story and if you get brought in properly you'll get to hear it and all Marauder folklore. Mum's written it up and it's in our secret room. The next time marauders arose – though they weren't at first called the Marauders because they knew nothing about them – were Harry, Ron and Hermione, Harry Potter and Professor Ronald and Professor Granger. Ron is Ron Weasley but his older brother Percy takes precedence here for the name. He refused point blank to be known by his middle name as a pseudo surname. And I can't blame him; it's Bilius."

"In what respect bilious?" asked AHHa.

"No, that's his name. Ronald Bilius Weasley. After an uncle. And anyway the only family connection there was Harry. Later Draco and Mum and in a way Neville Longbottom were part of it too. It was cousins Abraxus and Hawke and my brother Romulus and Kinat, Senagra's brother who declared Harry's group to be the young marauders and themselves to be New Marauders and they got approved by Padfoot and Moonie, the Marauder names of Sirius and Remus. Moonie became Akela after he was cured. And dad became Scales when he joined. The New Marauders didn't have nicknames. They just were. I was invited in to join Lynx, Senagra and Fabian though I wasn't then at school – I've been bumped a year since – and we found secret passages the New Marauders didn't know so they brought us in. Lynx has Black and Weasley blood, I'm Snape and Malfoy, Senagra is Konal like Kinat and Fabian is entirely new blood as Rom and Kinat were 'cos Rom's adopted though you could argue Snape for him. The lot below us – they're a large group, six, have my kid sister, Lynx's brother, the first house elf at Hogwarts same as Kinat was first Goblin, and we nearly had the first hag but she thought she ought to work hard as she was on a scholarship, where was I? Oh yes, the Mad Marauders. And there's three of new blood, Chang, Fenwick and Lockhart."

"As in Gilderoy the author? I'm related to him kinda" said AHHa in some relief. "I always thought he was a prat."

"His son isn't" said Jade "Amadeo Hero Lockhart, or Mad to his friends is all right. You're also related to the layer below that who are waiting to be accepted, Drusillina Hallow."

"Cousin Drusillina? I thought she was stuck up!"

"She's very controlled in manner" said Jade "She didn't look stuck up cavorting around chimneys – you're not the only ones – with Maud Langstaff hollering down the echoing pot that she was peering into the darkness in the hopes of seeing a light. Bella Black is Sirius' cousin, and Maud's a Hubble with Weasley connections. Isabel Nightshade is new blood. Incidentally, Sandalla, you're related by marriage to Pris Lockhart as well as the Malfoy cousins. The Jorkins family has every good reason to fight dark wizards. Your great aunt's death was part of a big plot to kill Harry that he and friends foiled; which ties your family to Marauders if you want a tie. New blood is good though. If you want to go through with it. It can be tough."

"We five want to" said AHHa "The ones you said would!"

"And it's not impossible you might include others" said Jade "I would have suggested Sebastian Cantripp but he's made friends in an older class; they may form a layer of Marauders above you. We'll see. They may just be friends."

As the group was three strong with Irmi in it and as Sebastian and Adrian were the sort of staunch, brave boys the Marauders liked Jade half planned to suggest it once Sebastian got his remove. Irmi had confided her story to them both – Gloria had been decent to Irmi but from a distance once it became apparent that Irmi got on better with Sebastian – and they had told her that if she had still been a werewolf they would have covered for her monthly. Which, as Sebastian pointed out, a girl could have covered more betterer as girls sometimes were ill monthly.

Having sisters it was something he knew more about, as he said darkly, that he could have wished.

The first blizzard hit, shocking those who were in the Alps for the first time. The marauders, Tala and Harmony, having read Chalet School stories were less shocked than they would otherwise have been but it was still something that as Lynx put it FELT odd even though one knew about it academically.

The caves at least were no colder – or warmer – whatever the weather outside; and the Marauders worked off a lot of nervous energy in their explorations and careful setting up of a fidelius charm to cover the way in to the worked passages. Jade had told Wulf about the passages; love mates of Marauders counted as honorary marauders in any case and she wanted him to know she was not avoiding him.

"Though not being close makes it easier to stay not too close in some respects" she said; and he nodded.

"Making a thorough survey is your duty" he said "And the idea of using muggle visitors to make it mundane is a good one; not one someone trained by Odessa would ever have thought of. I should not have done so."

The first blizzard turned to heavy driving rain and then back to stinging sleet; and even when it stopped it was definitely winter now.

It would snow, sleet, hail and rain off and on for a while with odd fine days that, if it had snowed, meant they could go outside for exercise and fly around a bit on brooms or take the cable car down to walk in winter boots or ski if they knew how.

The Snapes and their wards all skied, having been for several years on skiing holidays; none of the others did.

Lessons were instituted and there were loud complaints that the neophyte skiers were not permitted to cast repelling charms on the tips of skis that insisted on crossing and tipping their owners into the snow!

Lilith Snape gloating did NOT help; and Jade spanked her firmly, which as her sister she might get away with.

And Professor Snape's whistle was to be obeyed at once; and he sounded it the moment he saw the bruised black skies in the distance that presaged more bad weather and soon; and the last group, the oldest ones, were glad he was vigilant for the blizzard struck as they queued for the cable car. It was a wild ride up, the car buffeted and shaking, and some of the girls shrieking and clinging together. Jade hoped the next car could come up all right carrying the remainder of the teachers; Krait had gone ahead with the small ones including the smaller Snape children, the seconds and thirds with Dione, the fourth and fifth trusted without a teacher as were the sixth, split in two, the Marauders riding with the upper sixth. Of course, she thought, if it is too dangerous they will apparate and trust to there being no muggles around to see through the murk. They were all extremely able witches and wizards.

There was a communications globe between bottom and top; Severus could tell Strang not to bother to winch up the bottom car if it was safer to leave them both stationary.

This indeed was what the professors elected to do; and met the seniors at the top and prescribed hot drinks for all.

The storm abated somewhat overnight; enough to hear the sound of a muggle aeroplane whose engine sounded most uncertain.

Jade leaped out of bed and poked Lynx and Senagra with blood pulse as well as physically and pulsed the others too.

By the time they had pulled on clothes and boots there had been a rending crash; the plane had landed, Severus said, in the forest.

"Those of us who can, go wolf to get there fast" said Jade changing.

Irmi and Tala had discussed the idea together and had decided to learn a wolf animagus form; there were two years between them but they were best of friends already. Erich was wolf for his Tala and that made five.

Krait had no problem with any form but she was now six months pregnant and Severus said 'No' quietly and calmly; and when he used that tone of voice Krait did not argue.

Lynx maintained that her lynx was as good as a wolf any day; and David was a dog. Senagra and Fabian would be buffeted too much in flying form. However, as Krait could not go herself she put the other two marauders and Severus into wolf form; the blood tie was enough for them to change back when they got there.

And they were off, down the steep mountain side, low to the ground resisting the wind, leaping down rocks impossible for a human to go down at more than a crawl.

There was as yet no fire, a small miracle; the wings were gone, taking the engines, perhaps saving the thing from catching fire. The wolves – and others – of Prince Peak returned to human form and summoned piles of blankets into their arms to prevent any survivors then dying of exposure.

Some people had got out; an old woman hugged a child of about eight, two men in uniform were helping an old man and a middle aged woman out; a young man who seemed unhurt stood with his hands in his pockets just looking.

An elderly man came out of the plane carrying a young woman and a baby boy, taking them both well away; where the newcomers quickly had a blanket on the ground to lay her down, the two younger girls sent to distribute blankets while the older ones and adults went to bear a hand carrying the injured out of the plane. Jade stopped to asses the mother of the baby. She would die before she got to hospital unless Jade made some rapid adjustments.

It was complex to hide the healing; Jade surreptitiously moved her wand over her body, closing up certain arteries, surreptitiously moving back the bits of metal that had sheared and penetrated the woman's body and healing as she moved them. Then she wrapped her up and left her to see what else she could do.

She heard Irmi asking the young man what was wrong with him that he did not help others to help the injured.

"Well it might go on fire, mightn't it? I don't intend to risk myself! Here give me a blanket, I'm frozen!"

"No" said Irmi "I shan't you coward. Better that you freeze to death then live to breed; you disgust me. Besides, you can't even say please."

He raised his hand to slap her; and Jade kicked his feet out from under him.

"Don't ever strike little girls Herr Scheisserkopf" she said and went forward to help with a badly injured old woman.

Her injuries were bad but not life threatening.

She turned round to see the unpleasant young man taking the blanket off the woman she had healed; and went for him, punching him in the face.

"What does it matter? She's dying!" he said.

"And if she was, there's still her baby!" said Jade "You grade A Type One NAZI you!"

She wrapped the woman again and cast a warming charm.

"The SS would have crucified him" said the old man who had been back and forth several times "we in the Wermacht would have known how to see he had a fatal accident."

Jade looked at the old man thoughtfully.

"Do you think he slipped and fell and broke his neck?" she said.

"Should I arrange it Fraulein?"

"I can if you prefer not to."

"He has been more an irritant to me, his fellow passenger" said the old man calmly "And as he believes in survival of the fittest I think we may retire into the trees for a few minutes and see who is. You, boy, you think you are hard; prove it."

"On an old man? Hardly proof."

"Coward"

"Very well; you will pay for that! I will not be called coward twice in one day!"

Jade left them to it checking over people while Severus spoke to the pilot and co-pilot, who were telling him that the company insisted that they flew.

There was one fatality; an elderly woman.

It could have been much worse.

Jade went over to the other old woman, the one with the child.

"Bearing up pumpkin?" she said "My little sister's about your age."

"I say you did a nice job hitting the neo-nazi" said the little girl "Is granddad knocking his block off? What did you do with the wand thing that made a nimbus of light? Why is that girl strange looking?" she pointed at Senagra.

"Well if I managed to answer all those questions in one go I'D be the master race" said Jade, disconcerted "Here comes Granddad he can tell you about the creep himself, I need to check on the little mother" and she escaped.

With the pilot and co-pilot they could make up six stretcher parties, with the Wermacht man and his wife and granddaughter walking and the middle aged woman who was also uninjured if full of complaints.

That meant they could bring the dead body along too; and Severus asked the Wermacht man if he would carry the baby.

"At your command Mein Herr" he said "Karl Guttmann at your service, my wife Maria and our granddaughter Birgitta."

"Military, non commissioned and efficient" said Severus.

"Sergeant once in the Wermacht" said Herr Guttmann. "And like the little madchen you summon energy to lighten the stretchers."

Severus gave him a quick look.

"We need to have a long talk Herr Unteroffizier, when we have these people in safety. Where is the young waste of space?"

"He brags all the time that in a new age a fourth Reich will arise and show us how we failed because we were decadent and soft. I took him to show him how soft I am. The wolves will feast."

"Thrown clear of the plane and nobody missed him, hmm?" said Severus "I disapprove of such views as he held. They go with intolerance."

"Yes; you are not intolerant of those radically non human I see" said the Sergeant. "I am filled with curiosity. But yes, we wait; but it is something to ponder to take our minds off the horror and fear of the crash. To see my Birgitta's eyes bright with wonder not filled with terror is good."

They took the injured to the rack railhead; and Severus roused the goblin driver. The injured were made as comfortable as could be in the waiting room; there was telephone here for appearances sake and in case muggle tourists got hurt; and Severus telephoned the nearest Hospital in Innsbruck.

It took half an hour to fire up the engine; but it would take as long to lay on a medical train to the local station or send ambulances by road.

The young woman had regained consciousness having been stabilised; and cried for her baby.

Frau Guttmann took charge of her.

Jade took charge of Birgitta Guttmann.

It seemed highly likely she had talent; and as a muggle-born would never go to Durmstrang.

She was the illegitimate child of the Guttmanns' daughter who had died when she was just a tiny girl; they were all the family Birgitta had.

Her father might even have been a wizard attracted to a sensitive; for Herr Guttmann was certainly a sensitive.

And Birgitta was doing magic, because she explained how she had surprised der Grossmutter by concentrating on beans to make them sprout while she watched because they grew too slow, she informed Jade.

Jade sighed and told her about the wizarding world quietly and surrounded by a muffliatus spell.

When the injured and the pilots were safely off to hospital, whence Herr Guttmann said firmly his family had not business going, Severus invited them up to the castle.

"And if you don't mind we'll go the quick way" he said.

"At your command" said Herr Guttmann "You I trust for you are as an officer who never lets his men down."

"And a nicer compliment one could not receive" said Severus.

So they apparated, side-along apporting Irmi and the guests, and Erich giving a little assist to Tala. Wulf had learned quickly and Jade had been appalled to hear that , along with wand use, such things were forbidden to werewolves under Odessa and even by the German ministry as a whole.

And then Severus explained matters to Karl and Maria Guttmann and invited them to stay as additional caretakers with a place for Birgitta assured when she was old enough in a few years time.

They jumped at it.

Their life in Berlin was hard and they had spent all their savings on this holiday for Birgitta's sake and did not expect much from a compensation claim. This would give their little girl a chance to develop a talent they did not really understand but would give her protection for Severus promised to sponsor her if they should die before her education was complete.

That he would use judicious means to rejuvenate them somewhat he did not mention.

Severus was after all the world's pre-eminent potioneer.

Then the Yule Ball was upon them; for Severus was determined that the neglected social skills of the girls formerly of Cackle's should be addressed.

The girls of the Marauders and those who had had one or more Balls at Hogwarts were asked to dance with each other; Jem, Fabian, Erwin, Edward Seag and James were to pick a partner each and those left would, in order of age draw a card with the name of a male Professor.

Ron had howled in horror at the idea.

"Haven't I left all that behind?" he yelped "I thought I'd never have to go to another ruddy Ball, Severus mate, you're barking!"

"I only did it to torture you of course" Severus murmured, that having been a comment Ron had once made about a potions exam.

"Well I should think it jolly well will! Dancing with rotten schoolgirls? It was bad enough the first time round!"

"Digging yourself a hole with the missus there, bro" said Percy.

"He certainly is" said Hermione. "At least I know that at this ball you're not going to be eating the face off the wrong woman."

"Percy, what happened to Penelope Clearwater?" asked Severus suddenly.

Percy shrugged.

"She didn't like me preferring my crazy family to social climbing" he said "And my eyes were kind of opened."

"There'll be the right one somewhere lad" said Severus "One who believes in values not a….."

"Nearly dug YOURself a hole there" said Ron.

"Nearly did" said Severus "Self assured article, Miss Clearwater, and not necessarily with any good reason. Knows her quidditch. But I'm prejudiced against Ravenclaws until proven innocent."

"You're a snide creature Severus" said Hermione

"It took you this long to notice?"

The scheme meant that the sixth, and all the fifth bar one outside of the transfers would have a partner; and the one would be Angelica for being the youngest.

Jade asked her to dance with her; after asking Harmony to dance with Tala so she had a friend and wasn't too jealous about Erich.

"Jade, without you I should never have a chance to dance with anyone; and I'd be the one left out for being the hunchback not through accident of birth. I rejoice I can take part!" said Angelica.

"Dad said they'll circulate so us who are partnering each other each get a dance" said Jade.

Edward as oldest had first choice; and picked head girl Hilda.

Jade had a suspicion there might be a match there anyway.

Fabian quickly claimed Sylvia and Erwin the quiet moved in to ask Esmerelda who was glad as he was a quieter, gentler character than some. Jem asked Hillary, Seag picked Rosamund for rather than despite her eccentricities and James asked Amy, the other upper sixth prefect. That left two upper sixth, one lower sixth and half a dozen of the fifth.

Amarantha Keil was delighted to draw David; she was in the David camp of admirers. Morgana was less pleased to end up with Percy; everyone knew the Weasleys were poor, she had hoped to make an impression in a social situation on someone who seemed well off like Erich or Byron or Lee. Pamela Blackwood was the one who had Lee, who was unlikely to be impressed by anyone since his heart, even if he did not yet realise it, belonged firmly to Dimsie Burke.

The fifth just plunged in hands and picked, with Angelica exempted.

Bethany came up with Wulf, not perhaps whom she would have chosen, but Bethany was a gregarious little body and was prepared just to have fun. Modesta picked Erich, which was considered a waste by some other girls since Modesta did not belong to either David or Erich camp being content to be friendly and eschewing any romantic feelings. Hester was to go with Ron and Ron managed his usual level of tact by saying that as he had to dance at least he'd been picked by one who wasn't a giggling idiot. Dilys drew Severus; and was as nervous as anything. It was perhaps the best choice for her to make for Severus could skilfully put the diffident girl at her ease and help her overcome shyness.

"Cuh, you chose the best one Dilly-Dally" said Jade watching "Ain't anyone dances as well as dad!"

"But surely Professor Von Strang…." Said Mona.

"Hah, Erich has two left feet" said Jade "Tough luck Modesta; I should know he spent every Yule Ball at Hogwarts picking one or other of his sisters to take."

This was not strictly true, though Erich had gone several times with their sister Grace; but it helped crush some of the silly romantic mystique around him.

It also put Dilys more at ease reminding her that Professor Snape was only Jade's dad.

Mona, disappointed in not picking Erich must settle for Hercule.

And Alison had Byron; and Jade laughed and said she probably deserved him.

"What do you mean?" asked Alison, worried.

Jade grinned.

"Byron Bekard is a Ravenclaw; serious, interested in academe and very little but academe. And quidditch. You can't play for toffee, Ally, but you know a lot; reckon at least YOU've got a topic for smalltalk."

Alison brightened.

That would make it less of an ordeal anyway.

As it happened Jade reckoned Byron was too decent to be a Ravenclaw; but one had to tease.

The ball was to have music played on a wind up gramophone; Krait was buying up all the vinyl players she could secondhand and converting them to goblin clockwork having introduced the idea of making recordings. Wizards did not use plastics; but records could easily be cut by having the vibrations recorded on brass discs covered in wax which were then etched to produce a record. And vinyl discs played equally well on them, so the Great Hall of Prince Peak Academy rang to the strains of Victor Sylvester as being old fashioned enough not to shock the girls too much.

Besides, Krait was not a fan of Celestina Warbeck.

With recording devices there would be more opportunity for a wider range of music to be heard without having to book live bands; the Wizarding Wireless recorded on wax rolls to replay but one was limited to what they chose.

With music in their own houses, the wizarding community might pick recordings of anyone and by doing so added to Krait's financial empire as she was funding the business in the hopes of a good return.

The more money she made the more children could be sponsored into education.

And that was Krait's passion.

It was a bit of a shambles; the girls were shy and stumbled a bit over unfamiliar steps. The ones with teachers were even shyer and of those probably only Dilys, Alison and Hester really enjoyed the first dance with their official partner, Dilys for being with an accomplished dancer who chatted skilfully and inconsequentially; Hester for being with an indifferent dancer who admitted it and suggested they made up the steps as they went along and wasn't this a horrendous occasion; and Alison who chatted quidditch the whole time and didn't even notice dancing.

Krait muttered something about instituting Saturday night dancing with girls taking turns to dance the male part so at least when they got out into the real world they'd know the steps.

Dancing and Balls were after all a reality of upper class wizarding society.

Jade was overjoyed to steal a dance with Wulf.

Wulf had not known the steps to any dances; and Jade had been teaching him. And it was not likely to lead to anything improper for there is nothing less conducive to romance and eroticism to count 'ONE-two-three' or 'slow-slow- quick-quick-slow….'.

His incentives to learn were to enjoy dancing close to his beloved Jade instead of standing on her feet; and it had paid off. They floated round the floor in a waft of desire and it was hard for him to let her go when the music ended and he must seek another partner.

This was Angelica, who vaguely thought that Professor Luytens was more attractive than she had realised and certainly fun to dance with; for she was reacting on an instinctive level to the backwash of the scent of his arousal.

Angelica was fortunately too mentally young to get any further ideas than that he was quite nice really.

Severus had been half afraid there might be a risk of romantic idiocies for dancing with the staff – hence moving partners about – but fortunately the girls were all too overawed. Even Amarantha who did her best to impress David. David recognised her kind; the sort of hard faced Slytherin-type girl who wanted a triwizard winner as a trophy. David, asked about himself in a careful coo, interpreted that very freely and eulogised about his lovely wife and their baby girl.

Amarantha got no mileage from him.

Or anyone else.

The Professors of Prince Peak, save for Lee and Hercule, were old hands at repulsing importunate and grasping girls. And Lee had the armour of impenetrable indifference and Hercule had the French sang-froid to cope.

It did not, as Krait said, go too badly.

And then it was the end of term and a rest for Yuletide!


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

Romulus came out for part of the holiday though he also wanted to spend some of it with Senagra; and Draco and Grace came out with their two sons Edward and Jareth.

Jareth was named unashamedly for David Bowie's character; because he SHOULD have been a Malfoy, as Draco declared.

"And you and dad won't be level pegging for mistresses much longer, Sev" said Draco "Dad'll be firmly fixed with Finn by spring I reckon; my mothers reckon it's about time."

"I wasn't personally viewing it as a competition" said Severus "I just happen to have two mistresses as well as Krait. Lucius is just greedy; it's a Malfoy thing."

"He's a –WHAT did I hear a muggle say? – a bitch-magnet" said Draco cheerfully.

"I hope if you said that to him he clipped you round the ears" said Severus.

"Round the back of the head anyway" said Draco. "Women do seem to thrown themselves at him though; mostly he extricates himself neatly or if they're too thick skinned either my mothers or my siblings poison them a little bit."

"I am intrigued."

"Pansy Parkinson? Figured if she couldn't have me she'd have dad, the kids fed her the Elixir to induce Euphoria with an overdose of alihotsy."

"But the oldest are Erica and Gorbrin."

"Yes; quite a potioneer is Gorbrin."

"Damn! And I shall miss enjoying his development….he wouldn't like to transfer here would he?"

"And stop being Seeker for Slytherin? Talk sense, Sev, he may love his potions but quidditch is quidditch!"

"Fair comment" sighed Severus.

They all went home to London for a while to spend time in the London house, taking Wulf, Irmi and Nannerl Schwefel with them.

It seemed rather churlish to leave her to the boredom of a Christmas with somewhat disinterested house elves.

By this time she was ready to give parole in exchange for a change of scene.

Besides, if she was on parole she could wander freely and see for herself how much was truth about the English government.

Which had been the whole idea of Krait suggesting it.

Nannerl wandered about the mixed human and goblin community of Orme Court faintly scandalised by prosperous, self assured goblins who laughed out loud and interacted as equals with humans; and was shocked to discover that Wendy Malfoy was a muggle and that her husband chose muggle ways to do things over magical ways. She was taken aback by the disparate people that wandered through the door of the Snape house, from Lucius Malfoy, of whom everyone had heard, to a part-goblin woman who was a trifle shabbily dressed who called the Professor 'cousin Severus'; and each was greeted as warmly as the other.

She visited Diagon Alley that everyone seemed to mention and noted the card in the window of the big bookshop that said 'we are not racist here all customers will receive equal service' to which someone had added in wand-writing on the window 'and be overcharged equally'.

The poorest here were still the goblins; but they did not automatically slink out of the way as in Germany but stared with bold eyes; some even made faces!

Severus held her wand or she would have gone for it; indeed groped for it. A tall elegant blonde witch stared.

"You wouldn't be thinking of going for a wand against CHILDREN would you?" she said "What kind of creature are you?"

"I – they were insolent!"

"Children often are" said the witch "It's part of the joys of childhood isn't it? One clips them across the backside if one can catch them; or treats it with disdain. But a WAND? By your accent you are a foreigner; don't even THINK of hurting English children. You'd go to Azkaban."

"For punishing goblins?"

"Good grief! You are racist! And they're still CHILDREN. And any Briton is infinitely superior to foreign trash regardless of their social class; we have an inherent class that you unfortunate types lack" Narcissa Malfoy was enjoying baiting an obvious German woman.

And the attitudes of people seemed to bear out that this was what the British all believed; and they were all – well, actually moderately contented, was the only word she could think of.

She did not of course penetrate the poorest neighbourhoods; and had never seen such in her own country either. And though there were still issues to address the cheerfully stroppy nature of the poorest of Diagon Alley was a far cry from the heavy sullen acceptance of the Germanic Kobolds and peasant-wizards.

Krait said,

"Look Fraulein Schwefel, I hoped you'd come to realise you'd been lied to, but you seem to be determined to be loyal to your Prince Gerhardt and frankly I can't be bothered any more to waste my time for your benefit. You shall have your wand back and enough money for passage to Germany and you can go back to Durmstrang or wherever. For the keeping of you we can afford to offer a scholarship to a goblin kid from Zurich. You are a bump on a log; and I'm sick of you. I had real hopes as you had the instincts of honour; obviously I was wrong."

"But – but you can't just send me back! They'll never believe you kept me all this time and then just sent me back!"

"Why not? We have all the information that can be got from you. And besides, if these people of yours are so wonderful they will be delighted to receive you and be relieved that you are safe and well, will they not?"

"They'll think I'm a spy, a plant!"

"Why? Because we don't use torture? But your prince is a man of honour, you believe that, and attitudes come from the top; no man of honour would doubt a lady's word would he? Besides, a simple legilimens can check you tell truth even if they have none good enough to deep legilimens you."

"They are more likely to torture me!"

"What, good noble Germans that you are so loyal to? Surely not, it must be wicked British lies that Odessa torture their own, you must have been misled!"

Nannerl burst into tears.

"Look, I know without having to check that while I have been held my parents will have been treated as suspect and watched. They are paranoid! They are always afraid of people defecting!"

"Now why would they be afraid if their system is so wonderful?" said Krait.

Nannerl cried louder.

Krait let her cry for a while and said,

"Nannerl, you can't have it both ways. If you've realised that the sort of people who send dementors, erklings, huorns and werewolves against children, who treat as suspect the families of those captured in case captivity makes them realise a few home truths and who torture erstwhile captives to check they didn't enjoy themselves then admit it and we can move forward. But I'm not going to help you if you hide the truth from yourself so stubbornly and effectively sit and sneer and snipe at the way we do things. You looked with contempt on my neighbours and I was ashamed to have you as a guest. The time has come for you to shape up or ship out. I'm sick of your sulks. If you claim political asylum I'll give it to you; but you will jolly well behave yourself like a decent being on English soil; and that includes the castle."

"I – please I do not want to go back, I am afraid, and afraid more for my parents."

"Very well. For the time being you may live with the Casimir Malfoys; you are not ready to return to our school, you have too much to learn yourself. You may offer geomancy in the free school to pay your way – IF you can be even handed to the goblins, half goblins, hags and disgustingly filthy urchins that make up the dregs of society that we are trying to build a better future for in education. If you genuinely love children that should count past race or how cute they are when well washed; and some of these kids don't even have running water. I never claimed that we had a perfect society remember; only that we are working to improve it."

"I don't know that I could be evenhanded."

"Well I accept an honest admission. Why not work as a shop girl for Wendy then for a while? It's a comedown for a teacher but you'll meet a lot of people, not just customers. Wendy was elected onto the Grand Council by the muggles of London as their representative. Plenty of muggle relatives of the muggleborn have never been represented before. People drop into her shop to chat to her. Both her sons are taking a few years to teach the free school because somebody had to and they have honour and a sense of duty; our son, their friend, and Kinat, Konal's eldest make up that little set. Some of the poor humans don't like being taught by a goblin; they've nobody else to look down on you see because they've never heard of Germans. You bridle, but is it any more ridiculous? I don't think so. You can listen to the stories they tell their mum and dad of what happened each day; maybe it will convince you to at least go and see. They're doing a good job down there. You can take your time; but you need to pay your way, you're not a prisoner any more so you need a job as a refugee. Deal?"

"Very well; I have little choice. I will … I will try to learn how you can be so extraordinarily indifferent to race."

"You'll find out – I hope – when Wendy had a mixed bag of brats over to play" said Krait. "Children are children; muggle, wizarding, werewolf, goblin, elf or whatever. And when you've learned to accept the children you'll start to realise how few differences there are between different adults" said Krait.

At least, one hoped she might.

It was worth a try; she had needed shocking into admitting that Germany sucked!

Wulf and Jade had meanwhile returned to Germany, where they had planned a raid to remove three werewolf families from the compound as the first strike against the forces of Odessa and to – hopefully – give them allies to fight the unfairness shown to werewolves in Germany.

The raid would utilise elf style apparition and they had collected a number of volunteer elves including Dobby and even Kreacher who did not like werewolves but was willing to concede that if there was a cure they should be offered it. He had lightened up a bit since he and Sirius had learned to understand each other and even find love between them; as Remus Lupin was one of his master's best friends. He still obdurately refused to be freed; it had become almost a game between him and Sirius that Sirius would try to offer him a garment and Kreacher would turn his back and sing loudly and tunelessly. He had become quite sprightly since he had been allowed to help destroy the horcrux locket and Sirius suspected him of actually having an affair with a kitchen elf at Hogwarts.

They asked Remus and Tonks along too to make it an all wolf affair; and Remus jumped at it,

He was pleased too to meet a new brother though a little shocked that Jade – whom he still thought of as a child – should have found a mate.

The kidnapping went smoothly. The compound water supply was well laced with a sleeping draught – brewed by Severus and therefore both effective and safe – and the targets merely removed to a safe house in Alsace-Lorraine where Hercule had a pied-à-terre that he loaned them.

"I thought we'd wake up Freidolf Nachtigall first" said Wulf "He tried to lead me to see that my loyalties were misplaced; he's a pure blood wizard of excellent family, but shortly after his oldest daughter had gone to Durmstrang he, his pregnant wife and second daughter suffered a werewolf attack. Freidolf always said it was engineered by his brother who wanted to inherit; a werewolf cannot own property. And Katarina, the oldest one, was debarred under some obscure branch of Sallic law. Katarina's sixteen; she spends her holidays in the compound because she refuses to stay with her uncle, and is sequestered during full moon. She of course has a wand; werewolves are debarred from holding wands. That's why we brought some assorted ones. So our new allies – as we hope – can have wands. Katarina's in her last year at Durmstrang, she'll probably never see her family again when she finishes. It had to be now."

Jade nodded patiently.

They had been over all this in the planning; Wulf was nervous.

She gave Friedolf Nachtgall the antidote.

He awoke; opened his eyes; and started.

"Relax" said Wulf "You're with friends; you were right and I was wrong. I've seen things that showed me what a sham the Prince and all his works were."

"My family?"

"Here beside you; I wanted to talk to you first before waking children, frightened, so you'd know what's going on, be able to reassure them."

"Who are these people?"

"Friends. Irmi you know of course; this is Jade, whose father has developed a cure for lycanthropy, and Remus his friend for whom he developed it, and Remus' wife er, Tonks."

"A cure?"

Jade passed him her wand.

"You may wish to test the validity of that with a Revellaspell on Wulf" she said.

Nachtgall did so.

"It is true!" he said.

Wulf grinned.

"I volunteered to be an experimental subject, like Remus here; Severus thinks he has it perfected now. How do you fancy being the first volunteer to try the – hopefully – non-painful version?"

"You're not an entirely true test" said Jade "The previous version seemed to cause worse pain the longer someone had been a werewolf. Wulf must have suffered much" she gave him a look of admiring love.

"Severus shared the pain with me" said Wulf "He is a remarkable man; and truly the best friend I have ever had."

"Well let us see what it does to me" said Friedolf "I cannot see how this would be a trick; unless to see what I would do for the one thing I want more than any other. But you have not asked me nor imposed conditions."

"If you choose, after being cured, to go back to Odessa and demand your position of trust back and your lands it is up to you" said Jade, swabbing his arm and advancing her hypodermic. "I think you'd be an idiot to do so; you have been betrayed in your trust once, and personally I think they'd be more likely to kill you and your family out of hand in case other werewolves got the subversive idea that they might actually be cured…. A little pricking feeling coming up and a sharp pain in the arm….because they like having slave troops. Now the discomfort or pain really starts."

Rapidly fur grew and receded; Nachtgall was gasping.

"Donner und Blitzen, it feels like an enema to underneath the whole skin!" he said "But it was discomfort; no real pain. Is that it?"

Jade waved her wand up and down him.

"Seems like" she said laconically.

What was also good was that there was no blood pulse from him; no bloodsong of joining.

This had been another reason to choose him first; Wulf had declared him the man with whom he would be most comfortable as a brother if there was any blood joining; and Severus had trusted his judgement.

"Good; shall we do the little girls while they still sleep?" said Jade "It will save them having to suffer the discomfort."

Nachtgall nodded eagerly.

"Yes; though I ask you, may I use your wand and test myself?"

Jade handed it over.

He did the spell; and a look of fierce exultation crossed his face.

"The children – please do them now!" He said.

"The antidote to the sleep potion is in cups on the table; if you would like to wake your wife, and the children after they have been cured and explain, then I will do your wife. If of course she wishes it."

"Of course she will wish it!"

"I have no doubt Herr Nachtgall; but it would still be presumptuous of me to make a decision for an adult" said Jade quietly.

He stiffened and looked at her quizzically.

"And that, Fraulein" he said "Tells me everything I need to know about the ideals YOU stand for."

Once Frau Nachtgall had also taken the cure, and the middle child Sylvana was pulling Wulf's arm and aiming a barrage of questions at him, and the little one was cuddling her daddy, Jade drew Katarina aside.

"I take it you loathe, hate, detest and despise Durmstrang?" she said.

"I do. Partly it's because I had barely got there when my life fell apart and my family became werewolves; but I hated the people, the whole ethos too. I've taken refuge in my work and tried to stay away from Heinrich."

"Who's Heinrich?"

"My cousin; daddy thinks that Uncle Ritter waited until I went to school so that I'd be uncontaminated and could marry his horrid son. Heinrich's a couple of years younger than me, but it would consolidate his claim on the estates of course. He's a bully and a pig."

"Well you don't have to worry about him ever again; you're coming to Prince Peak with me and Irmi and you can do your NEWTs there; and if the upset makes you flunk out, my dad is the headmaster and he's really flexible and he'll let you repeat a year if you wished for good grades. Though I guess if you've thrown yourself into your work you ought to do well anyway 'cos nobody can take away REAL learning it beats over-revising every time."

"Yes, I hope I shall do well; I am taking more NEWTs than anyone has for many years, I take five."

"Five?"

"Yes, I know it is ambitious is it not?"

"Uurrr… for Durmstrang yes I guess it is" said Jade.

"Why, how many do you take? You are in my year?"

"I'm a year below you; I'm taking seven. Some of the girls at Prince Peak are rather backward though and take only three or four because they had poor teaching until we got there. Before they took only one or two, can you believe it?"

"Seven? I see why you despise five then" said Katarina, flushing.

"You wrong me; I am not so ill mannered" said Jade "It is the school I despise for not having higher academic standards despite being an old established school. And I have had the advantage of a Hogwarts education where seven is exceptional but not at all unknown. My mother has seven NEWTs two only at 'E' grade however, only five at 'O' because they had to stop off and fight Voldemort a bit. Our Arithmancy teacher, Madam Granger, achieved seven straight 'O' grades. Her husband got three 'E's; he is intelligent but not academic. What do you take?"

"Arithmancy's my favourite, I'm also taking Potions, Charms, Transfigurations and Enchantment."

"A fairly standard selection then, you'll enjoy arithmancy with Madam Granger, she really does know her stuff. You'll only have Edward in your class too, he'll be glad to have someone else to share Hermione's steely gaze with" grinned Jade "She and mum have the sort of esoteric arguments about obscure arithmantic points that make most people else retire with a headache; she's arguably one of the best practical arithmancers alive. Potions is taught by dad, Professor Snape, as you heard, I expect, he developed the cure for Lycanthropy I think that speaks for itself of his skills. Mum teaches transfigurations, she is an animagus and is rather good at medical transfiguration too. She lives under the name of Madam Malfoy – when you have married couples you need to use maiden names – as Madam Granger uses her maiden name. Madam Parnassus teaches charms, she spent her school career developing a series of amusing jinxes so she's rather skilled at how spells work; and Professor Bekard teaches Enchantment, he's a better enchanter than he is a teacher but this is his first year teaching so he hasn't the experience of course. If you can ask the right questions he's great at answering fully and cogently and he's a quick learner so he incorporates what people need to ask into other explanations. Some of us are doing Chanting to OWL level as well, though unless you've studied it at all I'd say it was not really an option for you to take up."

"I haven't; though if I could sit in on classes without taking it to exam I'd be interested."

"Oh that can be arranged. I say, I think they want me to for waking up the next family."

The next family also had three children; three boys. Rudolf Grindler was a Muggleborn werewolf, who had been an academic. He and his wife had run an informal school for the few children there had always been and Irmi was friendly with their eldest son Ulrich, who was a year older than her.

"Ulrika met Rudolf when he was first brought in and decided to marry him I think" Irmi had told Jade "And it wasn't until after Ulrich started turning at the full moon that they realised it was hereditary, by which time Reinulf was on the way. So they had Wolfram anyway because they loved each other and their boys and what was done with the older two could not be undone."

Rudolf Grindler listened to the explanations and rolled up his sleeve as soon as he saw the hypodermic, sure proof of his muggle upbringing.

He asked that his oldest son be treated as an adult and be given the choice as well as his wife; and he held his family to him, sobbing with relief that captivity and the slavery of the moon were to be at an end.

Ulrika declared that if her son would not change she would not either to bear him company; and would not take the cure until the youth had made his decision.

"How does it feel not to be a werewolf, Irmi?" Ulrich asked "As compared to being one?"

"Wonderful" said Irmi "Jade has taught me an animagus wolf form so I can enjoy all the things I never knew I was enjoying since my instincts miss it; and I can scent and run and make my own decisions not wake up after it's all over wondering what happened. Anyone who wants to stay a werewolf and lose their humanity every month has got to be daft."

Ulrich nodded.

"I wanted to weigh the pros and cons" he said. "I think to have control of oneself is better; I will take the cure."

They had been in the compound all their lives; only the firm education from Rudolf Grindler had shown them any other way. Even their mother had been there much of her life, having been a juvenile when she was bitten. They knew nothing but being werewolves; it was not surprising that Ulrich wanted to know more.

The last family had only one child, conceived while his parents were in wolf form as Hedda had been menstruating at the time of the full moon and therefore to a wolf on season. She too was muggleborn and she and her husband – not that they were allowed any kind of proper marriage certificate – had met in the compound. He was a wizard from a low prestige family and a mix of muggle blood; or rather muggleborn blood, since those who had talent in muggle communities were often encouraged by wizarding children untrained in prejudice and who later married into a wizarding community although not permitted wands themselves. Subsequent generations were looked down on but accepted albeit as rather second class citizens. Of such a family was Gunnar Schiff though he and Hedda had worked hard to avoid other children than their Rudi.

Hedda was cautiously delighted; now they might have other children freely!

Rudi was nine, of an age with Sylvana and a little younger than Reinulf.

None of the adults felt any loyalty to Odessa for the way they had been treated, especially after Wulf related the conversation he and Jade had overheard that told them what the human guards really thought.

Ulrich would go directly into Prince Peak school; the others would be on the roster of those to come. Rudolf and Ulrika had a job to walk into teaching the juveniles resident in Prince Peak and visiting children like the other ex werewolves; Severus had suggested that those adults who would be prepared to do so might run a Gasthof for muggle tourists to see the railway and later, the caves. It was a comedown for an aristocrat like Nachtigall; but he accepted it with dignified pleasure as a means to pay his way and not be a pensioner on anyone.

"I shall however be instituting legal proceedings against my brother" he said "I shall claim that he arranged false witnesses to testify to me and my family being werewolves and ask a court to do a revellaspell. It is a lie but less underhand, I think, than what he did to us."

"Assuredly" said Jade "But will there be reprisals from Odessa?"

"Yes; and I will leave my children in asylum with you if I may" he said "We must stand up as upright and prominent citizens and oppose the growing influence of Odessa in the government. Our duty is clear. And it too does not break the Unbreakable Vow our father made us swear not to kill each other, knowing my brother's jealousy; the use of a werewolf was his way around that."

"NASTY little man" said Jade "I haven't sworn any such vow if the legal proceedings do not punish him justly! And we'll give and pledge you every support and aid" she added "You are a brave man, Herr Nachtgall; I salute you."

"I too" said Wulf. "You have my backing, and we shall care for your children most tenderly."

"When I have completed my education I shall stand by my parents" said Katarina "This canker must be cut out!"

It would take some time to prepare properly and the Nachtgalls must speak long with Severus; but it was a start to the opposing of the nazification of the European wizarding world!

The cured werewolves were taken on to Prince Peak to settle in, and to oversee the building of a chalet style hotel down at the rail head, that would give employment to the local muggles in both the building and as staff, and Katarina and Ulrich were to go to London to buy uniform and equipment for school.

Ulrich had never had a magical education, any more than Irmi had; she had caught up readily enough with aid from Jade and from her friends, especially Sebastian working hard himself for a remove.

It was less hard, Jade had to say, to catch up to the poor standards of Cackle at Prince Peak, but Irmi had needed remedial potions lessons, taught by Krait, and so too would Ulrich. He at least was starting part way through the fourth, who had only chosen their electives last term and so would be less far behind on the exam course than had he been a year older; and if he found it hard, he could always repeat the year in with Irmi's group as Jade cheerfully pointed out.

"I can work hard" said Ulrich "I will study Arithmancy because I already know mathematics from my father. History is important; also Muggle Studies because I know my father's previous life; and ancient runes because my father is a Greek scholar with some knowledge of Ancient Egyptian and also Latin."

"A good start" said Jade "And the Latin will help you with spells. We have a non examination Latin class to help those who are interested in spell construction, you may wish to study in it. It is taught by the Muggle Studies Professor, Professor Nuffield who grew up as a muggle and only discovered he could use magic at the age of eighteen. I think you'll do just fine. My mum was fifteen before she started to learn magic – she grew up in a muggle orphanage and various factors hid her talent – and she caught up just fine."

"Hey you said your mum had seven NEWTs" said Katarina.

"Exactly; she caught up just fine" said Jade shrugging "She went in a year below her age at first but she pulled up, she took some OWLs at her chronological age, some more the next year in concert with her NEWT course and the NEWTs at the right time. It worked; Professor Dumbledore is flexible too. And Dad can be, he's had to be with the poor standards the girls were given here. But they've really risen to the challenge I have to say and worked hard to overcome the poor standards they've been brought up with. And those of us from Hogwarts have been able to help out too; Katarina, I expect you'll be able to help too, Durmstrang isn't Hogwarts but it's gotta be better than Cackle's was! Though you'll have to adjust to learning DEFENSE against the Dark Arts not dark arts; dad will want you to sit in some classes to give you tools to help your parents against Odessa."

"That will I gladly put extra time into" said Katarina "If I may learn enough to sit the OWL in DADA I would be most pleased."

"Dad'll give you extra lessons I expect" said Jade "For you, like Harry Potter, it is important."

"Everyone is so kind; I had forgotten that people could be" said Katarina "Though before my life changed so drastically I think many were kind because we were rich and well connected."

"It is an occupational hazard" said Jade shrugging. "But there ARE kind people out there; do not lose faith in it! And we who have ourselves fought will go as far as we must for comrades in arms."

Katarina could scarcely believe it.

It would be hard; but not to be alone any more was beyond price.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

The young Germans had been rushed round Diagon Alley staring as Nannerl had done at bold faced goblins, and staring even more to find that one of their school fellows was to be a goblin girl too, Senagra.

Katarina was of the opinion that if she had been taught in Durmstrang that any race was inferior they were probably lying; and Ulrich had no preconceived ideas, having been taught none since his views were irrelevant, and was more curious than anything else.

He was under the care of Helga Von Strang, in whose class he would be, and who could help him out being herself a native German speaker.

At the train station, Jade put Katarina into the care of Amy Walden as being quite harmless. Jade was a little preoccupied; Krait was very close to her time for birthing and Jade liked to be around to what she called officiate and Krait teased her was closer to 'interfere'. Jade did not mind the teasing; she knew she interfered a little. It was just so good to have siblings, but also mum had been unwell with a few of them. She'd sailed through this pregnancy again so it was probably another girl; Krait liked it to be a surprise so did not use her wand. Severus did not like it to be a surprise and did; but had a pact not to tell her if he could avoid it.

And Jade felt Krait go into labour as she was marshalling people at Zurich.

Lynx groaned.

"It wasn't that bad; she's masking" said Jade mildly.

"No; but I feel right queasy anyway" said Lynx.

"What have you been eating that you shouldn't?" asked Jade.

Lynx made a face.

"Hawke" she said "In a manner of speaking, only wrong mouth. We er, got a little out of order over the holidays; I think I'm pregnant."

"Ass" said Jade amicably. "That's all right you'll not be due until the Summer Hols and sprog can be in the nursery with the others for the last year. You could have had worse timing I guess."

"How do you remain sounding so virtuous with Wulf around all the time? I can FEEL some of the backwash from you, are you using potions?"

"We haven't lain together yet" said Jade primly "I want to enjoy my last years at school thank you; it was damned hard for mum having Lilith though she made light of it; but I saw it from the inside. Wulf's an adult; he has the strength of will to wait, because he loves me. No I didn't mean Hawke doesn't love you, you prat" as Lynx scowled "But he's a lot younger than Wulf; and he still has those insecurities from before he was adopted as Abraxus' twin. He needs an expression of your love I guess. We'll all rally round anyhow, old thing; you know that. And you can wear loose summer robes and do what Willow did and cast interest- repelling spells on your belly so people don't notice."

Lynx brightened.

"Thanks Jade, practical advice as always! I wish I didn't feel so loathsomely sick for hours in the morning though."

"Take a packet of biscuits to bed with you and nibble one when you wake up; 'swhat mum does" said Jade "Settles things. And talk to dad; he'll give you a settling potion that won't harm baby, something with peppermint and angelica in it."

"I will; he is brilliant at fixing things" said Lynx "If he'd gone into the medical profession he'd probably be famous, six inches fatter, and pompous."

"Good job he stuck to teaching them" said Jade grinning at trying to imagine Severus fat and pompous and like a self-satisfied Master Healer. "Oh help, what IS Rose Hubble up to?"

Rose ran determinedly at the WRONG wall; and promptly brained herself.

Sandalla was rapidly on the scene – Sandalla was staying with the Snapes for at least this first year – and trying to explain to the muggles rushing over to the injured child that she did not need to go to hospital.

Jade was over there in a trice.

"TOO much watching of The Matrix again, you horrid children" she scolded in fluent German for the benefit of the watching muggles "Come on Rose, the school nurse is going to want to look at you, you are NOT going to hospital unless you get concussed, I don't want to lose you. She is a most irresponsible child I fear, and if once taken to a hospital I do not know I am afraid she might wander off before she is collected, if need be we will take her into Innsbruck."

Oh to be over seventeen to confund them properly; the only ones of her own school old enough to be permitted to confund were just as likely to be hopeless at it.

Jade hustled the girls through the right wall and promptly cast healing magic as Lynx joined the crowd to get rid of well wishers; and Jade returned to the outside and sighed at the peccadilloes of weevils. At least she had seen Julian Finch and AHHa around; they were best well on the train and out of the way.

As it happened Jade was incorrect in her assumption that Julian and AHHa had got onto the train; they had been intending to, and planning on royally teasing Rose about her mishap, but while Jade was pacifying muggles, Julian had pulled his friend's arm and said,

"LOOK! That's Ivanova, one of the Bulgarian Chasers – let's go ask for her autograph!"

Any small boy confronted with the choice of tamely getting on the train and getting the autograph of a famous quidditch player is likely to take the latter option; with the result that by the time they got back elated to have wheedled an autograph each out of the witch – who was surprised to find wizarding children here – the train had gone.

"Lumme" said AHHa "They weren't joking about it teaching us punctuality. What do we do now?"

"We go for an ice cream and think what to do next of course" said Julian "I have muggle money with me."

AHHa considered this an excellent solution and Julian found ice cream so soothing that he had another idea, and went to find a public telephone booth.

The lessons in German with magic assist paid off; he was able to find directory enquiries and get through to the goblin in the office of the rack railway.

He was called a few things his German lessons had not covered and was told to stay put near the waiting place and someone would fetch them.

Someone was David Fraser who had more or less resigned himself to a life of sorting out weevils lost from the train.

He cuffed them both firmly, heaved them through the wall and apparated, and since they were now at the castle early they might make themselves useful and do jobs for Strang until the rest arrived.

The rest were due to arrive a little later than expected.

On the way the train halted suddenly.

Jade and Hilda both ran up to the engine.

"What's wrong?" asked Jade.

"Nothing, Fraulein, nothing!" said the stoker cheerfully "Grinf the driver, he has in Zurich shopping been and with presents to visit his mother is desirous, she lives just over there" he pointed.

"Is she sick?" asked Jade.

"Nein, nein, but she is old" said the stoker. "It has not been easy in the winter."

Jade nodded.

"He should not make a habit of it unless she is sick" she said "Perhaps we can arrange to move her closer to the school where he can watch over her."

"I will tell him what the gracious Fraulein suggests; he will be pleased she cares" said the stoker.

They returned to their carriage.

"Goblin engine men, honestly, in a world of their own!" laughed Jade "Goes with the job I think!"

And presently the train started up again and they were soon at the base of the mountain and being coupled to the rack rail train and taken onto the rack rail for the final approach to the cable car.

At which point Sandalla asked,

"By the way where ARE AHHa and Julian?"

The marauders – Lynx was feeling a bit better now – turned the train inside out looking for the missing two; and Jade buried her head in her hands and groaned.

"Never assume, Snape" she said to herself "Just because they walked towards the barrier last time you saw them… I feel a seriously poor prune now for not checking."

Fortunately for Jade's peace of mind the goblin in the office came looking for a prefect to explain that if they were missing two boys, Professor Fraser had them.

"Good" said Jade "He'll give them what for, little idiots! Any idea what they were doing Shrimpf?"

"They were autograph hunting Gnadige Fraulein" said Schrimpf. "Boys!"

"I agree entirely" said Jade "They should be kept on leads until they are at least fifteen!"

She wanted to get up to the castle and see Krait; for she had been aware in the background of her bloodsong of the arrival of a new sister.

And there she was, all red and wrinkled.

"BLONDE?" said Jade "That's a new one from you two!"

"Need the odd Malfoy look in the family" said Krait contentedly "Meet Merope Hermione, an early birthday present for your father."

"How nice" said Jade softly "Does Merope approve?"

The ghost of Krait's grandmother had of course moved with them to be an official school ghost.

"She does" said Krait "She's busy sobbing in pleasure right now. Give her a quick cuddle, then cut along!"

Jade picked up her baby sister.

"It's a bad habit mum" she said "You had Draxana on the first of September during the train journey to Hogwarts; I don't recommend repeating too often, in case the drama we had this time is ever worse."

She entertained Krait with a brief resume of the trials of the journey and left her adoptive mother chuckling and sighing in equal measure of the tribulations of caring for weevils!

Morgana Fairchild was not pleased to be sharing a dormitory with yet another girl and a foreigner at that. She had hated the idea of moving into dormitories at all and did not appreciate that to be with just two other girls initially had been a privilege for her age; she disliked both Amarantha Keil, whom she saw as a rival in most things, and Amy Walden whom she apostrophised as rather wet. And yet Amy was a prefect, and she, Morgana, was not! She could not understand Professor Snape's reasoning in that! Nor would she have understood his reasoning had he explained it, that Amy was a peaceable diplomatic person able to understand the troubles of little people who might come to her with them; where Morgana cared less about the feelings of others and certainly would not put the good of the school in front of her own interests. To Severus' mind she and Amarantha Keil were both like the worst kind of hard faced Slytherin girl and the only advantage to having them at his school was that, even with two years of being pushed they would not achieve the level of results they might have done at Hogwarts and so high grade ministry jobs would be out of their reach.

Severus was strongly considering making two upper sixth dormitories and having Amy share with Katarina in one and leaving the other two to irritate each other in the other; but the new dormitory was not yet ready for occupation and they must perforce share for now as a four.

The 'for now' had passed over Morgana when Sirri had brought Katarina in and introduced her; because she was still staring in outrage at the fourth bed and seething and did not, in any case, consider a house elf to be worth listening to, even a half elf or whatever she was, since Sirri wore her five-foot form all the time now.

"Yes well, just get out elf, we get the message that we are to have some foreigner palmed off on us" said Morgana, going to slap Sirri.

Next moment she hung wriggling in the air as a four foot woodlouse.

"For your racism to me, to Katarina and for disrespecting a member of staff" said Sirri. "I am a member of staff, my girl; I am the castle chatelaine. Without me, you do not eat. Without me, you do not have your laundry collected and returned. Without me the fires are not stoked. Without me the rooms are not kept clean. These things I order; and the elves carry out my orders. There is a rule about not interfering with the servants; by your manner you assumed I was one. You are wrong; but I shall consider what to do as if I had been for such was your intention. You shall stay there I think and miss the evening feast; I will release you at bed time and then you will have to rise early to unpack your things. I will not brook cheek and violence from a nasty, naughty little girl. Moreover, when I release you, you will beg my pardon for your insolence or I will place you into detention every free period until you do. You may ponder that. Katarina my dear, I am sorry that you have to share a room with a specimen of Nastius Silliassicus like that. I'm sure Amy will help you to settle in."

"Of course I will, Sirri" said Amy "I expect Morgana will be sorry she spoke out of turn."

"I doubt it" said Sirri "She might be sorry she got taken by surprise at me being much, much harder than her but it's not really the same; and I shall have to accept a verbal but not heartfelt apology. Still, that's life. Katarina's used to creatures like her and Keil in Durmstrang; we haven't had long enough to school them out of it I'm afraid, my dear!"

She patted Katarina kindly on the arm and apparated away.

"You were in Durmstrang?" asked Amarantha "What's it like there? Why did you transfer?"

"Well I believe it is jollier than your Azkaban prison" said Katarina "But not I think by much. My parents wanted me to transfer when they heard of the excellent teachers here, they think I have a better chance of better grades. I was only allowed to study five NEWTs at Durmstrang which is considered many, and I wish I had been able to come to a better school earlier."

"It wasn't up til last year" said Amy "I mean, crumbs, I think well of myself that I can study three NEWTs though Morgana is going for four and Hilda is taking five and hopes to get one at 'O' because she's an awfully good transfigurationist. And Edward has studied at home and is taking six!"

"If I get poor grades my parents will negotiate for me to take another year I expect" said Katarina "Perhaps if you wanted to take more you might consider that course if you concentrate on getting higher grades on fewer."

Amy laughed.

"Oh I'm not academic, I'm concentrating on getting pass grades!" she said. "It is more fun here now, we have more activities as well as more interesting lessons but even so I think I shall be glad to leave school and forget learning."

This attitude shocked Katarina slightly, having always had a love of learning; but since Jade Snape also seemed to love learning for its own sake she was sensible enough to realise that this was not a typical view of the girls here; any more than Durmstrang like behaviour seemed to be tolerated.

The woodlouse wriggled feebly as though to emphasise that point.

"Blew it that time, didn't you, Fairchild?" said Amarantha snidely "Pissing off Snape's bit on the side."

The woodlouse did a violent and querying contortion.

"Didn't you know?" said Amarantha "Why there are elf and half-elf brats who call him 'Daddy' as well as his excessive number of offspring that he has inflicted on Madam Malfoy. This Sirri is above herself because she's his mistress."

"I think it rather an infernal cheek for anyone to use a term like 'above herself' about someone who is quite plainly a superb witch with capabilities considerably above any I believed possible" said Katarina feeling she should exert herself. She had after all learned something about the Ménage Snape whilst buying her uniform. "If you are above her, then release your friend from the transfiguration yourself."

Amarantha stared at her.

"Oh were you expelled for being a beast lover like the boy in the third?" she said.

Katarina looked on her like a piece of dung that had fallen off her shoe.

She was, after all, from an old and prominent family.

"I was not expelled, no" she said "And I think you will find that not only are elves considered beings but that school rules forbid such racist comments."

"What are you going to do, sneak me up like foreigners do?"

"No" said Katarina "I will consider deeply what I might do. I will also despise you for being of the type of scheisser – excuse, I do not know the English word – that floats in the cesspool that is Durmstrang. You should have gone there; you would have fitted in well enough. In the meantime I do not wish you to talk to me; you contaminate. Come Amy, let us go down if you too have finished."

"I have" said Amy "Really those two are the limit; it'll be jolly to have someone reasonable to talk to as Hilda has her own cupboard to sleep in as head girl."

Calling the head girl's room a cupboard was grossly unfair of course, but Amy admired Jade's style of litotes and tried – not always very successfully – to copy it.

It may be said that Morgana did not apologise to Sirri and was declared in detention henceforth.

Morgana went to Severus.

"Please Professor, is it right that the housekeeper should put me in detention?" she demanded.

"If you have done something to warrant it yes" said Severus "What you can have done to irritate Sirri enough to put you in detention does NOT speak well for your behaviour however! And as a young woman of turned eighteen that is very disappointing. I suggest you complete your detention as ordered; if you do not turn up Sirri WILL fetch you; and I fancy you will find that embarrassing. Unless you feel there has been a misunderstanding and wish me to mediate?"

Morgana flushed.

"Oh I wouldn't expect you to listen to my side against your bit on the side!" she said angrily.

Severus narrowed his eyes.

"You know, I don't like the terms you use to discuss my secondary wife" he said "I think you might consider apologising."

"Why should I? I can tell all the others so they tell their parents and withdraw them! I have you over a barrel, Professor Snape!"

It was disconcerting that the headmaster should laugh.

"I was wrong; you are not a young woman but just a silly little girl" said Severus "Of course they will – NOT! Not if they want to remain on visiting terms with the likes of Lucius Malfoy who doesn't like having his wives disrespected either. And, my girl, that threat was what is called blackmail. Did you realise that?"

She shrugged.

"What if it was?"

"Well, Miss Fairchild there are laws in our society that are quite harsh on blackmailers. I suggest you apologise for a childish and tasteless joke right now or I shall have to take the appropriate steps; since you are over seventeen, an adult, and therefore eligible to be charged under the laws of England with the crime of blackmail. You may be a silly little girl Miss Fairchild but you are NOT a child and it is about time you stopped acting like one. You are in school to learn; and that means that you have entered into a binding contract to accept the discipline of the school as part of its smooth running. One very rarely comes upon a young person in the sixth form who requires the enactment of discipline upon them; most have by that time learned self discipline and the ability to function in a social environment. That you incurred a detention at all is disturbing. Now were you going to apologise to me for your ill considered joke?"

"I – yes, I didn't mean it" said Morgana quickly.

"If, Miss Fairchild, you spread your own version of my relationship with my wives around I will still press charges" said Severus, who had seen that thought cross her vision.

"I shan't! But it proves you're ashamed of her!"

"Little fool, it proves that she and I do not consider our private life any of the concern of any of you brats" said Severus in contempt. "Else do you not think that I should prevent the children of my other wives from being around and calling me 'daddy' in front of the lot of you? Even though the adopted ones call me daddy too, it's fairly obvious – apart from Tarquin who's actually my cousin – which ones are mine and which are not. You are an idiot. You are also a rude idiot. You have two terms to shape up in before you are loose on the world; and see how well you fare if you should be so criminally rude to someone who decides to react to it! Now get out; I shall be asking Madam Sirri Snape what you have done to annoy her."

"She turned me into a wriggling bug with too many legs too, that's got to be forbidden to do to a human especially by …a non human" said Morgana.

"And doubtless for saying to her what you dare not say to me is why you were so transfigured" said Severus silkily dangerous "It is a punishment reserved for racist comments. Now I understand; she required you to apologise or be in detention until you do. I suggest you do. I am sick of you; you tried to get extra tuition in a most irregular fashion and now you are rude, racist and bent on making a criminal of yourself. If you have not made the required apology by tomorrow night I am going to ask your parents to withdraw you; you may get to take your NEWTs as an external student in Durmstrang at this late date, but I doubt it."

"THAT's blackmail!" squealed Morgana.

"No, Miss Fairchild; it lies within that contract that you are in, education for your co-operation. No co-operation, no education. I provide a service; I am within my rights to withdraw that service. You may indeed be more comfortable asking your parents if you can be got into Durmstrang at this late date; you will find lessons with me and with the other two Madams Snape quite uncomfortable if your apology is not sufficiently good, and that leaves only one lesson does it not?

"Other two….you mean Madam Parnassus…."

"I mean, Miss Fairchild, that you have to consider the consequences of your actions; and that rudeness to one person has a knock-on effect to the way you are then perceived by the friends and relatives of the person you are rude to. Like my son, Professor Von Strang; my ward, Professor Fraser and his wife Professor Devlin, Professor Malfoy's Uncle Lucius , significant numbers of the Weasley family since Professors Ronald and Granger were as close to Harry Potter as I; and Professor Weasley who stood by us to fight Voldemort, Professor Dumbledore my guardian, Madam Hardbroom my aunt, significant of my friends in the council chamber….are you beginning to understand the art of consequence, Miss Fairchild? You are a nasty little girl. Do not make me show how much nastier I can be if I feel like it."

It was beginning to sink in.

The Fairchilds were not of the best families; like most of the families who sent their children to Cackle's or Hellibore's they were very wealthy but hovered at the edge of society, gentry enough to be considered as spouses but not of the kind to be able to invite such as the Malfoys or the Longbottoms to their parties though they might manage an invitation to the sort of ball or do to which such great families occasionally went, and hope then to catch the eye of an eligible mate or even make a friend who would then ensure invitations to more prestigious occurrences. Thus on the social round Miss Morgana Fairchild might hope to make the acquaintance of an eligible bachelor such as one of Lucius Malfoy's nephews; but not if blackballed by the Malfoy family!

And marry she must; Morgana had no idea how to have a career even if she passed her four NEWTs!

She fled in horror; and fought with herself.

Every feeling of pride revolted against apologising to a half-elf – as she assumed Sirri to be – as much as a full blood elf! But to be expelled so near to her NEWTs and to have all the world ostracise her! That was not to be born!

Accordingly Sirri had her apology, rather halting and not very sincere; but it was an apology.

Severus had another race relations problem.

A goblin dressed rather loudly with a yellow hat turned up demanding to see the head; and demanding that the boy who owed him money be made to pay up. He was threatening law suits and troll leg breakers.

"Who owes you money for what?" asked Severus.

"It's a gamblin' debt squire; 'e's cheated me, and I've had to travel out here 'cos the brat's parents say he's at school out 'ere, see?"

Severus gave him a withering look at being called 'squire' but said nothing of it.

"This matter needs looking into; if you are owed money by one of my boys he must certainly pay it. I'll have all the boys old enough to gamble lined up" he said "I do TRUST you didn't enter into a gambling contract with a little boy?"

"Naah, he was about sixteen or so" said the goblin.

Severus accordingly asked for the attendance of Edward, Jem, Fabian, Erwin, Seag, James and Ulrich.

"These are all the boys aged fourteen and over" said Severus, interested to see if the Goblin insisted it was one of them as somehow he could not see any of them gambling and since, if he spoke to the boy's parents that was in the case of three of them him, and in the case of Ulrich highly unlikely.

"Whaddya mean, all of 'em? Don't you hoax me, Professor 'ellibore, there's more'n that at a boys' school!" said the goblin angrily.

"WHAT did you call me?"

"Professor 'ellibore. S'right title innit?"

"Right title, wrong NAME neighbour." Said Severus "I am Professor Severus Snape of Prince Peak Academy of Magic, formerly Miss Cackle's academy for Witches; and these are my first coeducational students. Professor Hellibore of Hellibore's Academy for Wizards is an entirely different entity; and I suggest you take up the matter with him. You have the wrong school."

"Merlin's bollocks! Well that's a turn up for the book!"

"As it may very well be; but I ask you nicely neighbour not to use turns of phrase like that in front of my pupils. My housekeeper will see you given a warm drink and a slice of cake to help you on your way; but try to get the right place in future before making rather stroppy demands" said Severus firmly dismissing him.

He turned back to the line of boys.

"If the word to describe that individual that popped into your heads was the same that popped into mine I pray you dismiss it again immediately as coarse and unworthy of gentlemen" he said "Go about your business; I am sorry to have troubled you over a mare's nest. And by the way" he added "If any of you DO ever gamble and get into difficulties, for goodness sake come to me. I'll bawl you out but I shan't send a troll leg breaker after you nor try to blackmail your family as some professional bookies will."

"Gambling is foolish" said Ulrich.

"Granted Mr Grindler; but it does not stop a very great number of people from doing it, even those who acknowledge that it is foolish. I advise steering clear of it; I disapprove of it. But I will help any of my boys out if they get into trouble with the sort of crooks who are generally involved in it. Equally I would expect any of my boys to do the straight thing and pay up if they owe money, or if something went stupidly wrong to throw themselves on my mercy for a loan and pay ME back galleon for galleon not at the usurious rate of interest these people charge. Lecture over; run along the pack of you!"

Apparently there was never a dull moment for a headmaster.

Lee had discovered over the previous term that his rather sheltered pupils were not only unaware that muggles were capable of reasoning like people – over which he bawled them out as a muggle quite capable of reasoning even before he developed magical skills in his late teens – and convinced that muggles used electricity to copy magical effects because they were jealous. They were equally convinced that goblins had invented the steam train and that electric trains were less efficient copies of them by muggles.

Sandalla too had asked advice in the MSHG as she knew nothing of European culture and one thing led to another via television and mass media to infrastructure, trade, tourism and trains.

Lee asked permission to take sundry classes on train rides around muggle trains and this was granted with prefect backup and in small numbers at a time.

The first particularly were fascinated and Lee found himself telling them all about his model railway set and involved Herr Guttmann who had spent some time during the Second Muggle World War working in a marshalling yard loading tanks onto Kriegslokomotives.

This led to the railway club and a promise that at half term they should go into Innsbruck and purchase the start of a model railway.

Modelling the geology – with help from David the geomancer – on which to set their railway kept even the wannabee marauders quite out of mischief!

There were nine keen ones in the first, AHHa, Albert and Granville, Julian, George, Rose, Sandalla and Fred and Flo who were joining in nicely now and had been thrilled at how well Lawrence had been doing over Christmas! That he was improving using a muggle regimen of muscle strengthening made them keen about all things muggle; and eager to be accepted too. Sebastian Cantripp was also quite keen, and though Adrian and Irmi were less so they joined in with their younger friend. Besides, making gloopy piles of papier-mâché was always good fun to mould terrain and then making trees and bushes to scale for them by the expedient of transfiguring card and fabric into precise replicas. Naturally there was a steep section so they could have a rack railway – and they all learned exactly how the rack rail worked and drew enthusiastic diagrams in their Muggle Studies exercise books – like theirs. Severus had offered them a spare dungeon for their hobby though he was a little taken aback to see how much geography had sprung up there.

"It'll be a grand display" said Lee "We can even raise money for more scholarships by charging muggle tourists to look at it over the holidays maybe when it's done?"

"We'll see" said Severus blinking at such ambition.

Oh well, it kept the more enthusiastic elements out of too much trouble.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

Lee Nuffield borrowed the Marauders to help him escort the dozen enthusiastic railway hobbyists into Innsbruck; he felt that four Marauders ought to be equal to so dangerous a task though he gravely apologised that it was riskier than fighting Dark Wizards.

"At least he appreciates the scale of our sacrifice" said cheeky Lynx. "Can we have danger pay?"

"In your dreams" said Lee.

He was only five years older than them after all.

They picked a fine weekend when Madam Gimlet had laid the cards and prophesied two days good weather before the next blizzard; and Krait and Hermione had independently run statistical tests on her weather prediction and found her better than seventy five percent accurate which was, as Krait said, better then muggle scientific methods and therefore worth cultivating especially up here where weather prediction was rather vital. They were trying her on longer term forecasts too; which Madam Gimlet rather enjoyed.

Everyone likes to be needed and important after all; and she only had three NEWT students in all, one upper and two lower sixths, Amy Walden taking it as a soft option and Pamela Blackwood and Hillary Cantripp because it added another NEWT to the few subjects they had studied through the school to give them the chance to take five and four NEWTs respectively. There were only two OWL students for that matter, Angelica who believed in omens and was quite skilled with interpreting them, and Dilys Hornby who again was studying a soft option.

Most of the fourth liked it as a soft option; and of course lower in the school it was a compulsory taster subject and treated with more flippancy than seriousness.

Hence Madam Gimlet's enjoyment of being a weather prophet of some – albeit unexpected – skill.

The gaggle of children waiting at the station in the village were relatively quiet and well behaved, looking forward to a treat and wanting to show off as well to the boys from the English school that had come to study the rack-railway. Apparently they too had a railway enthusiasts club in their Austrian based school and were hoping, one of them informed the Prince Peak railway enthusiasts, to map the whole of the Tiernsee region area and wanted to add the rack rail too as most of them had never seen one let alone been on one.

They were a little envious of a name as cool as Prince Peak; they were from St Ninian's and were very pleased – and surprised – not to immediately get jokes about did they say St Trinian's. Lee chatted to their master, a John Penrose, who said that the Prince Peak children would doubtless meet the four prefects he had permitted to go into Innsbruck to buy materiel for their layout. He asked where Lee's group were mapping.

"Oh I was working on a fantasy line to show how the rail infrastructure works to teach economics and such under guise of playing with trains" said Lee "We're going to have a massive marshalling yard and I've acquired a volunteer who worked on the Kriegslokomotives so we can slide in a load of history too. We're doing HO, because we can get stuff more easily."

"We're using N gauge" said Penrose "To pack more in. We have three boards each six foot by four."

"We got given a dungeon" said Lee " – We're up in the castle up there, we refer to the lower levels as dungeons, it pleases the kids and don't hurt anyone – and it's twenty-five feet by forty so we can really sprawl."

"You lucky, lucky…..people" said Penrose, drooling.

Just then the train for Innsbruck pulled in.

Being a continental train the doors opened automatically; which fact had either been forgotten by, or remained unnoticed by, the couple making out on the floor.

Small persons stared with horrified fascination.

"Get in quickly and step round them!" said Lee hastily. Continental trains also stopped for only a limited time at any station and went on time regardless of whether half a school was in and half was out.

The juniors milled around the lovers, giggling as Lee and Marauders shoo'd them into the next carriage.

"Crumbs" said Jade "They must be powered by ruddy Duracell; reckon he's the Duracell bunny" which muggle cultural reference she then had to explain to the amusement of her group.

Innsbruck station was large and busy and the eyes of little boys were drawn to the sign 'FREE FOOD'. Jade read the small print which said 'Free food in exchange for entering promotional competition, over eighteen's only' which she duly pointed out.

"I don't know why you need extra food anyway" she said "We get as much as we want at school and this is only teryaki which is undercooked noodles and beef in a not very nice sauce"

"What's the competition anyway?" asked AHHa.

Jade sniffed.

"Being Japanese food I'd guess a Japanese style eating contest, last one left unexploded and alive wins" she said.

"Cool! Can we watch? I've never seen exploding muggles before!"

Jade clipped him around the back of the head.

"And you aren't going to now. Unless you want to get back without any trains?"

They skirted the religious fanatic prophesying that the end of the world was nigh and Jade had to explain that no, he wasn't a seer, just an exhibitionist who was sad enough to need the attention and probably had piles which was what made him cross.

The religious fanatic fortunately knew no English.

They duly ran into the four seniors from St Ninians and introduced themselves; and had a wonderful time choosing what to buy on the budget they had been given.

Lee finally reduced the wish list to manageable proportions and they paid and started for home.

Meanwhile back at Prince Peak four of the boys from St Ninian's were more intrigued by the funny little men with big hands and feet who ran the rack railway then they were by the trains.

Peter and George Lowther, Randolph Wright and Rory Staines called themselves 'The Four Investigators' and had progressed to Dashiell Hammet via Garfield with the addition of Film Noir because Rory's granddad was a Humphrey Bogart fan. They were twelve years old and fascinated.

They proceeded to wander off to the cable car and peered into the crystal ball.

A goblin face peered back.

"All right, all right, get on board, I'm coming" he said.

Strang later claimed that all little boys looked alike to him; which was a reasonable excuse as one little boy is much like another and was less a racist remark than a jaundiced caretaker type one.

The four needed no second invitation.

They hopped on board.

Strang was busy adjusting things when they got off so they just called a 'thank you' to him and hustled through before he noticed that their uniform was wrong.

It was a normal half term holiday at Prince Peak.

Some Herbology students were helping Professors Fraser and Devlin to replant the tree of a wood nymph in the courtyard to give shade in summer; nymphs fell half way between care of magical beasts and herbology as David was earnestly explaining as the wood nymph, inspecting her placement as she emerged from her tree was sufficiently satisfied to take of her leafy garment and offer herself to David.

"You wouldn't like me" said David "My other form is dog and you know what THEY do to trees."

It worked; the nymph made a little noise of disgust and leaped back into her tree bole.

"Barking up the wrong tree there my dear" said Ellie to David. He groaned.

"I just wanted that conversation rapidly TRUNKated" he said.

"Oh really branching out" said Ellie.

"I'd as Lief not know" said David.

This had their youthful helpers in fits of giggles. Also the Four Investigators.

The excitement being over the Four Investigators moved on to where one girl was moaning to another that if her wretched brother got his remove into her class she'd jinx him and good.

"What with?" asked her friend.

"Well the jelly-leg jinx for certain….anyway I know that one. HOW does Jade Snape get people to grow little tentacles?"

"Who'd she do that to?"

"Morgana Fairchild – there was an AWFUL row in the sixth, apparently Fairchild and Keil too had made racist comments and Amy Walden and the new girl Katarina Wotzit broke dorm protocol 'cos they thought it was bad enough and called a Sixth Form council on it and sent them to coventry!"

"How do you know?"

"'Cos I eavesdropped on m'sister when she was discussing it with Esmerelda Jorkins of course, I was fagging for her because I ate all my week's sweet rations and she comes over pretty well for a few chores. Apparently Professor Snape has three wives and…"

"You can't have three wives, not all at once."

"Yes you can, Lucius Malfoy does and nobody says anything to HIM about it and Madam Malfoy's his niece so if SHE thinks it's all right it is because she's really Madam Snape after all. And anyway because it was SIRRI that Fairchild had slagged off and she's one of the Madam Snapes, Jade was well pissed and hexed her every which way to Sunday for being rude about her second mum and I heard that Fairchild was covered in little tentacles, pale green, vomiting slugs and with her bogeys climbing out of her nose turning into bats. EEWW!"

"Gosh" said the other girl impressed. "I've HEARD of the bat bogey hex but I've never seen it done. I say didn't Professor Snape cut up rucky? He's ever so much harder on Jade than he is on the rest of them."

"I think he had her scrubbing cauldrons which is WAY below his usual poetic punishment level even if it is pretty nasty so I guess he didn't disapprove that much of Jade defending someone she loves. Jade's well cool"

And the girls moved away.

The four investigators looked at each other half gleeful half scared.

A school where the tricks and punishments enacted on each other sounded like delightfully gruesome magic spells!

Their next excitement was seeing the young people on brooms, actually FLYING, throwing around a red ball and other people with outsize rounders bats whacking grey balls and others charging after something that was moving too fast to make out.

One of them headed steeply for the ground for a short way and then pulled up.

The red haired grown up shouted,

"If that was meant to be the Wronski Feint, Miss Hellibore it was pretty faint hearted! THIS is how you do the Wronski Feint!" so saying he charged off at full tilt on his broom, rising then diving sharply until everyone watching, muggle or wizard alike gasped; then pulled out just before he hit the ground.

"WOW!" said the girl addressed as Miss Hellibore .

"Watch Jade fly it" said the red haired Professor "She's almost as good as her mother and cousin Draco. And they're second only to Harry Potter of course."

"You were on the school quidditch team with Harry Potter weren't you sir?" said one girl breathlessly.

"I was; and it was a privilege" said Ron, grinning "Our House team actually; I was keeper, and my twin brothers as beaters and my kid sister as a chaser; she's married to Harry of course."

"Oh sir! You're GINNY POTTER's brother?"

The muggle boys looked at each other and made being sick noises.

Magical girls could obviously be just as silly as ordinary ones.

The noise was there undoing; the man glanced over.

"You boys there! Come here!" he hollered.

They knew that tone of voice; it belonged to games masters everywhere.

They meekly came.

"And WHO are you?"

"Please sir, I'm Rory Staines, these are George and Peter Lowther and Randolph Wright and we're from St Ninians and please don't make us vomit slugs or have bats come out of our noses and can we have a go on your brooms please?" said Rory.

Ron stared; then roared with laughter.

"Well you certainly have a cheek!" he said "Four of you, let them borrow brooms; if you can make them go, you're welcome to try."

"How do they work?"

"You concentrate on flying. If you have any magic at your command they do. If not, not" said Ron.

"Though even some pure bred witches have trouble" murmured an unidentified voice.

"THANK you Miss Hellibore for the snide comment, write out six times Caspar Mandrake's 'Ode to Quidditch' for me" said Ron absently.

"Sir! How did you know it was me?"

"Who else was it going to be?" said Ron, enhancing his reputation no end as only slightly less omniscient that his Auror friends Harry and Draco.

The Lowther twins were as ginger as Ron himself; and their brooms quivered to the touch and with identical startled yells they were airborne!

Neither Randolph nor Rory got any joy out of theirs.

The only two boys in the group, and they were big boys too, looked at each other.

"C'mon you kids" said the taller, heavier built lad "Hop up with us; we'll give you a trip."

It was amazing! And not nearly as uncomfortable as they had expected; as Rory commented.

"Och, that's aye the cushioning charm the noo" said the boy he was with, the slight blonde one.

The Lowther twins were having a great time; until they nearly flew into the tall, scarred man who came round a corner as they were swooping.

He ducked

"WEASLEY BOYS!" he yelled "GET DOWN HERE AND BACK IN BOUNDS!"

They landed rather ineptly; George tried to do it with a flourish and fell off.

He was staring, perplexed.

"But I don't HAVE any Weasley twins" he said "I thought it was a déjà vu moment there… Ron are these anything to do with you?"

The red-haired professor had come over.

"Sorry Severus they asked to have a go I didn't explain bounds because I never thought for a moment that they'd be able to….they belong to some muggle school…."

"So one might guess by their uniform. Do you boys live near an electricity sub station?"

"Yes sir, our dad works there, we've been packed off to school so we don't see mum and dad getting divorced" said Peter.

"well you deserve to be in a wizarding school; if that was your first time on brooms you're potentially talented quidditch players and if you never get an OWL between you that's worth cultivating."

"They don't think so at school" said George "We accidentally set fire to the dormitory a little bit 'cos we figured out how to make flames come out of our fingers."

"We didn't want to go in the first place" said Peter "But it'd at least be cool to be here, can our friends come too?"

"What was that about Weasleys?" said George "We've got a great-great something or other called Biliumus Weasley who disowned his daughter for marrying whichever great wotsit it was of ours, there's a really funny letter from him to her telling her he'd ignore any owl she sent and saying that she might be a squib but she was still a Weasley."

"Crumbs!" said Ron "Not an awfully Weasley attitude, though I suppose if it was a long time ago it might have just been the time. I don't know of any squibs in the family unless you count the Prewett cousins who are accountants which comes close enough."

"Your prejudices are hanging out Ron" said Severus "A squib is a person born to a wizarding family who cannot use magic; a handicap on the order of a child born blind or deaf to a muggle family – non wizarding family that is. And your friends, although sensitives I suspect and able to see things are muggles. And would not get a lot out of coming here you know."

"But sir! We hang together and they're miserable too!" said George "Randolph's parents are so wrapped up in themselves they can't be bothered with him; and Rory's dad died in a freak accident and his mum works all hours. We joined the railway club because we all wanted to know about the peculiar little men that drove the rack engines."

"Goblins" said Severus "Oh dear, by rights your friends should go to Rowan House if they want to know more about our world."

"I heard tell" said Ron "Of a Lionel Dell who entered into a blood ritual with his muggle friend to give him ability."

"It is NOT to be encouraged" said Severus.

"Come on Sev,mate, you started the business to protect Harry."

"And we walked into it with our eyes open knowing that when our numbers were small serious injury or death to one might backfire around the others."

"And you proved arithmantically that with four or more in a bloodgroup the chance of that was low" said Ron "I CAN read; and I DID read your book you know. Enjoyed it actually; understood almost half."

Severus gave him a two-fingered clip about the head.

The four boys – the other two had come to listen – recognised this. The two teachers were good friends. The younger one had probably been taught by the older once or had been a junior to his prefect; they were still young enough to be hazy about guessing ages.

The slight blonde boy beckoned; and they slid quietly towards him.

"It's no' verra hard" he said "Ye cut open yer palm and place yer own tae each o' yer friend's and say some phrase like 'we be of one blood ye and I' tae solemnise it. It neednae be profound so lang as it's profound tae you. Ye'll feel as weak as kittens afther; it's the effect of the great magic. Love magic through blood magic is awfu' deep and powerfu'."

"er….love?" asked Rory. It wasn't a word twelve year old boys were comfortable with.

"Is it no' anither worrrd for loyalty?" said Seag softly. "Ye ken, the twa on ye as are muggles will no be any GREAT shakes as wizards withoot mair wizards in a blood group; but ye'll hae something. Enough tae be eligible. And I'll talk ma fayther round. That's Prrofessor Snape, yon dourr mannie there wha's struggling wi' his conscience that Ron's put blood magic intae yer heads."

"Thanks er, Snape!" said Rory holding out a hand.

Seag shook solemnly.

"I say, you wouldn't like to boost them too would you?" asked George.

"Awa' wi' ye, I already belong tae the big blood group that ma' family begun fer Harry's protection….. och, I'll tell ye aboot it when yer here o'rights!" he said.

"Seagsron Snape are you corrupting those boys?" said Severus.

"Ah am that sirrr" said Seag. "Ye'll be wanting tae find oot if ony of them have a talent like drawing or music as an excuse tae yon shillpit parents o' theirs."

"Maybe" said Severus.

"Randolph's an awfully good artist" said Peter.

"My granddad looks after me mostly" said Rory "Reckon you could tell it to him straight. He showed me the fairies on his allotment after all."

Severus sighed.

"I'm not having you until next term at the earliest" he said "And if you're going ahead with blood magic DO use er, antiseptic wipes on whatever you use. A silver blade is best but I daresay you won't be able to get one of those. Oh." Seag was grinning and Peter felt something move into his pocket. "On the other hand maybe you will" Severus said dryly. "It is my duty to advise against this course of action. It is considered dodgy still by many of the wizarding world and very few even talk about it. You twins were blocked by electricity otherwise you'd have been for Hogwarts in Scotland long since. But I could do with a few boys here; it used to be a girls' school and we're still getting people used to sending boys. Will your parents listen in light of the odd letter from Biliumus Weasley?"

"Mum might" said George "It's her ancestor. Only how can we show her if electricity blocks?"

"Get her to take you to a park at least half a mile away" said Severus "Show her there. Tell her I'll call. Randolph, I don't like lying to parents will they believe?"

"They won't even hardly listen" said Randolph "They even work together and I'm in the way. If you tell them I won a scholarship for my art, well, magic's an art isn't it sir?"

"It is indeed boy" said Severus sadly. "Yes, I know another child of loving parents, parents so loving of each other she becomes the gooseberry. And Rory has a sensible Granddad. Good. Now, you pests, I think you had better be returned to your rightful owners for the time being and TRY to behave yourselves in the meantime. Ron, will you?"

"Certainly Severus" said Ron "And to you pains, I'm Professor Ronald; because my elder brother teaches here under Professor Weasley."

"Yes sir, Professor Ronald sir!" they chorused dutifully.

"Make your bow to the Headmaster then" said Ron "It's our custom here, boys bow and girls curtsey to the Head."

They bowed clumsily.

It seemed a little strange; but it was better than saluting the flag like American children did in school.

Ron handed the boys over to their frantic teacher, John Penrose.

"You NAUGHTY boys!" he said "You know what the head said about any more trouble, you twins!"

"They just wanted to ride the cable car" said Ron "You can't blame them for that, reckon they've been watching 'Where Eagles Dare'; our school is a bit Schloss Adlerish! And our caretaker who operates it can't tell one small boy from another, we've only had boys since the beginning of this year. Have a heart! And when they got up there it was to find us on half holiday; the girls are a bit feeble so we break from Friday lunch time all through Monday in the middle of the term."

"That's all? We break all this week" said Mr Penrose. "Keeping them occupied and out of too much trouble is a business I can tell you!"

"That's why we keep ours hard to the grindstone" said Ron "Scouts and Guides activities before school from six, plenty of prep, and the railway hobbies group keeps our most enterprising luminaries from climbing the chimneys in search of secret passages."

Penrose laughed.

"Looks like yours keep you as well entertained as ours! This lot had a barbeque – a BARBEQUE – in their dormitory!"

"Oh we took out the fireplaces in dorms and ducted heat instead" said Ron.

"We don't have fireplaces either; we have central heating" said Penrose "They didn't bother to think about venting smoke!"

George mouthed 'magic fire' to Ron, who understood perfectly.

"Boys" said Ron "But I guess they pay the bills when we get our stipend!"

"Would we do it else?" laughed Penrose.

Various small boys looked injured.

It was a matter of principle.

The St Ninian's boys met up again with the returning Prince Peak group who had also collected Justin Finch-Fletchly come with a goodie-basket for his cousin and friends and eager to play with trains.

"You can work as hard as you like for your remove Cantripp" said Ron "We're stealing four boys from St Wotsits for the second."

"FOUR?" said Sebastian "How'd that many come to be missed?"

"Twins, magic masked by eclec – uh the power stuff; two sensitives and a bit of jiggery pokery" said Ron.

"Electricity" said Lee "It and magic interfere with each other, in places it's produced magically active people can't do spells and for a long way around it mugglefies any magical kids" he added by way of explanation to the group.

"How AWFUL!" said Rose "Can't they be banned from doing it?"

"Rose my good ninny, electricity is to muggles what standard charms are to wizards" said Lee "We are the minority group; as well say we should be banned from using magic because heavy magic use prevents electricity from working. It's a manipulation of raw energy; chizpurfles feed on low power electricity quite happily proving it's all part of the same thing, arithmantically speaking anyhow. The thing is to be aware and check for kids who show up if they move, or while they're at school and so on. There's a whole new ministry out there searching manually for magically active kids in the neighbourhood of such things. If there wasn't electricity, because the whole infrastructure of the western world is based on it, there'd be wholesale death of muggles if you took it away. You wouldn't want that, would you?"

"Gosh, no!" said Rose "Why?"

"It keeps their healers able to function and perform medical tasks that need bright lights; it's how they light their homes. It keeps their food fresh the same as a charmed fresh-cabinet; the ones that go to work by electric trains would have no income if they couldn't and their families would starve; they couldn't do half the jobs they do because they need electricity to communicate so most of the jobs and trade would stop existing so they'd have no jobs, no pay, and the government couldn't keep them all you know, so they'd starve" said Lee.

"I s'pose half of what we do would fall apart if we couldn't use magic" said Rose "Dear me, how very complex it is having to take muggle needs into consideration!"

"That's why we have muggle studies" said Lee "It would be equally sensible for muggles to have wizarding studies and for both of us to learn a little give and take, but the law is to remain concealed. And perhaps it is as well; there are more muggles than wizards and they're equally paranoid and I could quite see someone starting a crusade to kill us all. They'd succeed, incidentally, in at least reducing us to pitifully small numbers. We need to build up the numbers of sympathetic muggles to a time we can talk about things. And the current English Prime Minister is no help; they're supposed to be informed about us you see, but he starts singing and pretending he can't see or hear anyone from our world."

"Isn't that rather childish?"

"Rose, Mr Blair IS rather childish. Besides it upsets his wife's religious scruples; she doesn't need to keep a broad mind a man called the Pope tells her what to think, and Mr Blair would like that too except he wouldn't be able to lie about being all things to all people quite as well if people knew that. Take it from me that ministers be it magical or mundane are self-serving creeps who need to be watched like hawks. We have people like Lucius Malfoy to do that; muggles unfortunately do not."

Lee had always been fairly cynical about government; learning about the excesses of the Ministry of Magic before the Grand Wizarding Council reformed in a modern fashion to put a crimp in their dictatorial zeal had increased his cynicism no end and made him glad there were people like Mr Malfoy and Severus there to deal with creeps!

And the better understanding there was of both worlds by at least some elements of both worlds, the better!


	12. Chapter 12

_An extra one just because it's Christmas_

**Chapter 12**

Jade had not minded cleaning cauldrons as a punishment for jinxing Morgana; it was well worth it, and so she told the girl, and Amarantha Keil too.

"You keep your filthy mouths off my family or I'll REALLY give you something to get me punished for!" she said. "I'm glad you're leaving at the end of this year; I hope you marry pure bred German wizards of the Odessa kind who are old fashioned enough to think that women are for breeding and married women don't need wands. There are some you know; it goes with the other narrow minded crap like blood snobbery and racism. Erwin's and Helga's mum had her wand taken into so-called safe keeping by her husband you know. New ideas sink into those kinds as into your brains about as well as chopped sopophorous beans into the solid sludge you brewed, Keil, that you tried to call the Draught of Living Death and Hilda said looked like well stewed inferii. You'd soon shout about modern concepts and rights if it was your rights affected; but until you realise that you're just going to be nasty and I'm going to ignore you unless you annoy me enough to jinx you into balls. So stay out of my way; stay out of my family's way; and please pass your NEWTs so you don't have to repeat a year. I can't imagine how irritable it might make me having to have you in my class!"

It was not a pleasant thought for the two upper sixth girls either.

"Is that true, Snape? About German witches?" demanded Amarantha Keil.

"Go ask Madam Von Strang if you don't believe me" shrugged Jade "Erwin will escort you there and back so you don't have a chance to upset the little ones; she's one of our nursery staff. It is true though and I have heard it from more sources than her."

"It's not an excuse to play about for your dad, whatever the race of his….mistresses" said Keil.

"There were reasons for both that at the time were pressing" said Jade "And no, I'm NOT talking about dad getting a bun in the oven of them. The reasons are none of your business. Mum is fine with it; SHE brought them into the family, each of them, so don't even think they were foisted onto her. I couldn't handle it myself; but my mum's a very special person. And, frankly, it's their business; not yours, nor anyone else's. You aren't being asked to be a part of the ménage so why should you care? The whole thing is about personal choice. And at that they have FAR more options than German witches, so just live with it."

Amarantha Keil nodded briefly, curtly. She had only made the original comment to Morgana in the dormitory to stir trouble; she hadn't intended to get THIS much trouble brought on herself!

Morgana's main thoughts were how to get into a position to get Snape into trouble or at least made very uncomfortable! Her thoughts were turning on making social contacts with the Malfoy family and marrying someone who had more clout than the minor line that Jade belonged to, since she was never going to get anywhere in school with Professor Snape also having a down on her! Perhaps she should even concentrate on captivating Lucius Malfoy himself, said to be susceptible to beautiful woman, since he was at that certain age that should be ripe for her youthful charms! And then she'd get rid of his other women, demand that either they went or she did, as soon as she had him utterly captivated. There was no contest of course; Morgana was lovely and knew it with clouds of soft black curls and skin almost as fine as that of a Malfoy. Narcissa was almost as old as Lucius of course, and doubtless had lost her physical charms trying desperately to keep him by having all those children recently; the muggle and the goblin were so much political dressing of course, he could keep them as his pensioners for show so long as they weren't living in her house!

Morgana comforted and indulged herself with such twaddle and pictured refusing to let Jade Snape and her precious father come into the place, making sure she turned Lucius against them because being so besotted he would hate anyone who had been cruel to his sweet Morgana of course! He even had the advantage of being good looking and looked in his prime!

Jade, knowing nothing of Morgana's foolish thoughts, was glad the girl seemed at least to be keeping herself to herself. It gave her more time to snatch illicit moments with Wulf.

Their self-imposed rules made for more ingenious ways to please each other, to assuage the desire that smouldered at all times below the surface ready to break out if they did not firmly damp it after fanning the flames with passionate kisses and tender caresses. There was too a headiness in carrying on an affair almost in front of the whole school, with swift, hard kisses snatched in passageways, Jade crushed between the roughness of the stone wall and her lover's broad chest, leaping apart if they heard footsteps ringing along the passages and a rapid application of grooming spells to look demure and cool before they should be overlooked. It was all very pleasant and exciting, and the concern about getting caught was all a part of it.

It was no very big deal if they got caught; Jade was going to marry Wulf anyway. But illicit pleasures are always sweeter. And it would make life a little harder!

They also spent time together just to be together; which the marauders noticed rather; and Lynx said,

"We don't grudge you time with Wulf, Jade, but we miss you a bit."

Jade shrugged.

"Sorry. It's just….we've been formulating a bit of a plan to steal lots of werewolves and to get information about Odessa and Gerhardt and the like. And I'll be away from him for a whole year or more if we do it."

"And you weren't going to involve us?" demanded Senagra.

"Yes; peripherally. You see, I'LL still be the age of a Lower Sixth after taking my NEWTs; which can be checked, you know. I plan to do a year in Durmstrang to make the contacts and then go to work for Odessa. As a wolf animagus. Such a thing, to lead werewolves would surely appeal; and I can find out loads undercover the way my dad and mum did. If they can do it, so can I."

"Crumbs!" said Fabian "That's rather….heavy."

"Yes" said Jade. "I have a cover story; and I can tell the truth mostly too all because of the blood joining. I mention that Lucius had a torrid affair with a witch in Hogsmeade when he was at school – true – and that the Malfoy family would not let any illegitimate offspring use the family name when a prestigious marriage to the Black family was on the cards, also highly believable. And that child is supposed to be my mother. If I say that my mother briefly knew Freiherr Von Strang that's also true. I just IMPLY it was intimately. They can check for Malfoy and Von Strang blood; and they'll find it. Pure bred witch of the right stock, bingo. I find the ways of Hogwarts untenable also the way things have changed in the Prince Peak school and would like to finish my education at Durmstrang. Sorted. Then I make the right contacts and move out onto Gerhardt."

"Can you lie well enough? You're as straight as a die!" said Lynx.

"Have to learn, shan't I?" shrugged Jade. "Sure I can manage to surreptitiously corrupt the first years to civilised ways too. Give me something to do between repeating lessons and looking good enough but not TOO good. You lot and Wulf and Rom and Hawke can be my contacts and help me be disruptive while I have alibis."

"That should be fun" said Lynx. "You and Wulf are going to stay celibate all that time?"

"I don't know" said Jade "I think we should actually do the deep joining before I even consider it; and that can lead to pregnancy, at least it usually seems to. I thought if we did that and got together in the next Yule holidays it would mean I'd have the baby before starting at school; and almost fully weaned too. And that'll be hard but at least I'll have a bloodsong link to our baby!"

"And I guess you'll know that Krait will look after him or her too" said Lynx "But it'll be hard!"

"Sure; but not as hard as it's been for the kids that were born or made werewolves" said Jade. "That's what we stand for isn't it, to do the hard things to make life easier for other people?"

"I guess so" said Lynx wondering when Jade got to be older than her and half wishing she wasn't.

And they made no more complaint about Jade finding time for Wulf in preference to finding time for Marauding; but Jade found more time for her friends even so.

It was important, as she said to Wulf, to be used to working together, even on silly fun things like looking for secret passages so that they were ready to work as a well meshed team when the time came.

And Wulf agreed.

By the time spring came in a hurry the marauders had mapped many of the main branches of the cave system; and the river that burst out above the village was indeed the one that they had followed. It would not be hard to build steps up and save when the river was in spate there was a narrow ledge all along it and a wooden walkway could be easily installed for safety.

Exploring the myriad side passages would take a lifetime, or a Jade said, several successive groups of Marauders a number of years.

The muggle villagers were wary of the idea of opening the caves at first; there had always been rumours of caves under the castle but legend said they were haunted by hobgoblins and the like.

"Someone heard of Senagra" giggled Lynx.

The thought of revenue from tourists was tempting however; even the relatively few tourists who were coming to see the rack rail had made a difference to the hard life of peasant farmers able to sell tourist goods and food to them.

That there were people prepared to invest in a Gasthof providing employment too was a good thing!

The caves were to duly open the next year when enough local guides had learned the best routes to take people and decided what to show.

It meant that the caves became unusable for Marauding for a while since they were full of locals braving a stiff climb up by the waterfall in order to see for themselves; and a local boy narrowly avoided death when he fell off the steep, slippery rocks into the plunge pool.

The Marauders had been watching from a ledge above with Wulf; and Jade cried out when her lover launched himself without thinking into a perfect dive and emerged after too many long seconds dragging the boy with him.

The marauders got down to the pool by means that involved a lot of levitation to balance them as they scrambled and jumped, Jade to the fore.

Villagers rallied round with blankets; the water was icy and the boy was blue despite the surreptitious warming charm Wulf had cast. He was shivering himself and surrounded by admiring villagers rubbing him with rough blankets and offering him nips of their locally brewed hooch.

When they got back to the castle Jade scolded Wulf firmly for being a ruddy hero and kissed him hard and demandingly.

"What else was I supposed to do?" said Wulf.

"Nothing; but you did it suddenly enough for me to have conniptions while I was trying to think of a way of saving him without giving away too much!" said Jade. "NEVER stop doing things like that love, I love you for it, but try to warn me first! You idiot, you had no idea how deep the pool was, you might have been killed and broken on the rocks!"

Wulf wrapped his arms around her, content to be praised and scolded in the same breath.

"But no, sweet Jade, how could it be? It is a pool with no river flowing out; it is deep and the water returns underground. It would be extraordinarily interesting to be a salmon some time and swim through subterranean tunnels of water you know!"

"You sweet-talking fool of a wolf, you know how to turn a girl's head with your foolish romance!" growled Jade.

Irmi crashed into the room.

"What is this papa that you are trying to drown yourself?" she demanded. "Jade, have you told him off then?"

"Yes, but I reckon it's your turn now" said Jade "I'll leave you too it; no man can sweet-talk his daughter as easily as he does his mate; I should know. Give him hell, Irmi; I can't manage it" and she winked at Wulf as she left Irmi beginning a good scold in the sort of measured cadences only a fond daughter can manage when telling off her father for risking himself.

With the spring the importunities of the wood nymph became more pronounced, and she firmly stripped at every personable young male professor and even – to his horror – at Edward DuBois who pointed out that although his surname meant 'of the wood' she was not to take that too literally.

He complained to Severus that actually it had been a severe temptation because she WAS lovely; and actually his family had nymph blood in it a long way back.

"She wants to breed" said Severus "I suppose it depends whether you're prepared to accept that you might have a daughter growing in the yard or no. I have no objections; I was going to ask a male Professor to satisfy her urges but if you are attracted….."

"Are you kidding sir? Hilda would have my guts for garters!" said Edward "I was hoping you'd tell me how to avoid her! The nymph that is, not Hilda, obviously!"

"Fiddle with bluebell flame spells as you walk across the yard" said Severus "They hate fire of any kind."

"Thanks!" said Edward "Is it WRONG that I feel an allure from her? It makes me uncomfortable."

"Not at all; nymphs are closely related to veely and other fey kind" said Severus "Their allure is very strong. It is almost by nature a spell of attraction, a kind of sexual confundment. And for such fey who are strongly tied to nature like a wood nymph then the time of year does mean something. We had to move her, however; one can hardly tell muggle woodsmen, no leave that tree it has a nymph attached to it. They give you funny looks. I imagine she will educate a few older boys in her time here and perhaps that is better than them sneaking out to see muggle women. I am acquiring more land for the school further down the mountain where her daughters can grow in peace. But it is not wrong. She has a magical scent that tells us all that she is in season and gagging for it and it is hard to resist. Well, well I shall ask for a volunteer amongst my staff. Beloc might see to her needs if the Professors will not. Stay strong, Edward; and don't kiss Hilda right after you've crossed the yard, she might think she was being second best and you venting your feelings for the silly leafy wench on her. Tact. Women need it."

"Yes sir; thanks" said Edward, who had not considered it.

And Professor Snape should know if he had three wives.

Edward considered him a very brave man. Having one girlfriend was scary enough at times.

Severus summoned his unattached male staff – Byron, Lee, Hercule, Strang and Beloc. Beloc had also chosen a five-foot form like his sister; it made seducing goblin women at least easier and Beloc, when all was said and done, was both French and a bit of a wide boy. He was also very careful about contraception so Severus made no complaint.

"Our resident Nymph NEEDS some one to fertilise her once every ten years or so" he said "Ordinary seedlings make ordinary trees but she feels a need to reproduce her own kind to herd her trees if you will. She's a young nymph and has no daughters yet; and one of you is going to have to provide her with one because you don't have any ties."

"When we do we might worry about having a daughter to explain" said Lee. "I – I think there's going to be someone for me; I'd rather not Severus."

"Ah" said Severus "Like that is it? I confess I never thought of it when I asked you to look after her, but I'm glad. You'll be just what the girl needs."

"Eh bien, the rest of us per'aps should draw straws!" laughed Hercule. "Where then is Wulf? Is not he unattached also?"

"No, Wulf is attached" said Severus calmly "As is Erich. Will you settle it that way then by straws?"

"I'm not dallying with any damned nymph" said Strang "Flighty pieces. I'm keeping myself pure for the right woman I am!" and he stalked off.

"He's SO excitable" murmured Severus.

"Paper, scissors, stone?" suggested Byron.

The others agreed.

Byron and Hercule both made stone and Beloc paper.

"Well looks like I win the dubious privilege!" laughed Beloc. "Wish me the best, gentlemen, ave, Severus, fornicaturi te salutamus!"

"Idiot" said Severus fondly.

The nymph was no more trouble.

Her tree was a still slender beech with silver-grey bark; and in common with all beeches she had kept her leaves over the winter to protect the slender buds beneath, that she was now shedding in preparation for the new growth. It had been the wrong time of year to move her of course, but the foresters were busy thinning beeches to make growing room for oaks. Ellie made a lesson of it in her herbology classes, that beech grew taller than oak and made a dense, dark forest, killing the oaks beneath the canopy. Nothing but beech trees grew in a beech forest; save fungi. And Fagia – as they nicknnamed her – was only about thirty years old, barely more than a youth, at the lower end of being a fruitful tree. There would be a great change to her over the Easter holidays with the bright green of her new leaves opening and the catkins that were her flowers to make seed. Fagia found it all very exciting too and deigned to come and lecture to the classes as Ellie had helped move her so tenderly. Dealing with her broad, shallow roots had needed care, and her personal root fungi must be kept intact to help her uptake of water and nutrients. Fagia told them that her tree would not flower every year but that it might live for up to three hundred years if well cared for and provide shade for generations of Prince Peak children.

"How far can you go from your tree?" Angelica Hellibore asked.

"It's not totally the distance, it's how long I am away" said Fagia "I need to be with my tree once a week really. You are thinking about those nymphs who wed humans?"

"It crossed my mind" said Angelica

"We would normally only choose such a course when we were young and could take our tree to where our human husband lived" said Fagia "And so long as we could see it out of the window and run to talk to it daily we should be content – if he treated us well enough of course. If he did not we should just merge with our tree. I think that has happened before now. If the daughter of a nymph with a human is reared without a tree she is a little bereft, a little vague, but generally not discontented so long as there are trees around. This is what often happens and she can then wed freely and produce sons as well as daughters because she is no longer a proper nymph. Me I think this is sad and wrong and I think that just having human lovers for a sufficiency of daughters is better. We are not meant to be away from trees. You" she pointed at Bethany DuBois "You are part nymph; it is not too many generations at your young age to merge with a tree, I can help you to if you wish to follow your destiny!"

"Thanks but I like being human" said Bethany.

"You miss out on so much! Listening to the sap rising, the tender rustling of new leaves, the deep ageless love of a tree echoing in your own sap…."

"And not being able to go anywhere for longer than a week, having to tend a tree when I could be having a seaside holiday not to mention not being able to come to school? I don't somehow see it being me" said Bethany "I like people more than I like trees; and I'd rather have blood then sap thank you, and sink my teeth into a juicy steak than be stuck nibbling mushrooms and stuff"

"Oaw" said Fagia "It would be so nice to have a girl my own age as company"

"Maybe Madam Devlin can find another nymph who'd like to move" said Tala pragmatically.

"Maybe I can" said Ellie "You're always welcome to chat to the students any time, Fagia, and sit in on classes you know."

"Thanks; I think I will" said Fagia.

The boys of Hellibores sent a laconic and slightly contemptuous invitation to the mixed children of Prince Peak to play a quidditch match with them for the end of term if they cared to come and see how the game was really played.

This invitation caused great indignation in the school, naturally!

"I don't like you Jade Snape but you better play seeker and crush them!" said Morgana Fairchild.

"Damn right!" said Jade "Merlin's bedsocks, something we agree with? Has to be a first and probably a last Fairchild; let's try not to swoon over it!"

Ron and David put together a team under consultation.

That Jade Snape was to be seeker was a no-brainer.

Jem Ingate too had played for Gryffindor and was one of the better players; and Angelica Hellibore had taken to it like a duck to water. They would be two of the chasers. Neither young professor liked Amarantha Keil but it could not be denied that she was a brilliant beater; and Edward DuBois had come from Hellibore's with a good game. Another upper sixth had taken to it quickly; even in a few short weeks of the season starting, it was apparent that Katarina Nachtgall had excellent instincts and Ron and David pencilled her in as keeper. Which left a chaser.

"Miranda Potts of the fourth?" suggested David.

"She picks holes in what the others do" said Ron "Reminds me of a slightly less thick skinned Cormac MacLaggan and I mostly wanted to KILL him."

"Seag Snape then; he plays any game with a natural grace even if hurley's more his thing" said David "And put Potts in as reserve; call it her junior status. Should we write and ask if their second seven would like to meet ours?"

"WHAT second seven?" said Ron "The rest of the fourth and the third are a disgrace – save Emily Grant who wants to out-boy the boys – and the second is a disaster. All the kids in the first play up, especially the younger Grant kid, Kate, but until I get those muggle cousins of mine into the second I'd not commit a junior team. Pity Angel Hellibore isn't quite as good as his sister."

"She had an incentive" said David "Until Jade came along she had a hunchback; now she can play games she puts her heart into it!"

"Oh, that makes sense" said Ron. "When we've got Pete and George I'd play them with George Ingate as chasers, Kate Grant as seeker, Emily as beater with Fred Visick, Rose Hubble as keeper where looking like you ought to be tied together is actually an advantage, and Sandalla Zorn as reserve. Next year we'll give them a run for their money. This year let's stick to a senior team."

David nodded.

Ron was very good at picking good players and potentially good players which was even more skilful.

Hellibore's was in another castle just over the border into Switzerland; it had a more fairlytale castle look and less functional appearance.

"Give me some wire and a little piece of string and I'd be in there before you could say 'IKB'" said David, referencing a muggle cartoon life of Isembard Kingdom Brunel.

"Not thoroughly defensive, is it?" said Ron "Good job Odessa hasn't been after Hellibore's"

"Unless they already did and it's a plot to get us as hostages!" piped up Jade.

The two professors turned to look at her, Ron glaring, David aghast.

"Never thought of that" said David.

"Four of us can elf-style apparate" said Jade "One passenger each and leave Keil and Potts as more danger to the enemy in their hands than rescued…..yeah, only joking" she added.

"We can't draw out now" said David "If it is Odessa we must learn what we can, take out the civilians and come back with combatants."

Jade nodded.

She did not seriously believe her own half flippant suggestion; but it was well to expect the worst after all!

The boys of Hellibores were waiting to welcome the team they had challenged; and most of them had turned out to gawp. Some of them seemed to expect the idea of girls in Quidditch robes to be funny.

Not that the team was yet in quidditch robes.

"Ah, nice to meet you old boy" said Ron to the Hellibore Games Master "We'll just make use of the facilities in the changing rooms you've sorted for us and then we'll have refreshments after that, before we change, standard sort of thing for interschool matches, what?"

He did a very good Draco when he put his mind to it, reflected Jade.

In other words he was not going to be intimidated.

"Changing rooms? We assumed you'd come changed!" said the burly wizard.

"What? We're not uncivilised oiks at Prince Peak you know" said Ron. "Fly over in the same garb we play in? Not exactly on, is it? Besides, there's the showers after….. look old boy if you haven't GOT modern facilities we just will HAVE to go home again; some of us are used to Hogwarts you know; and even Durmstrang manages rudimentary facilities."

"Sir, I need the toilet" said Angelica "It's a long journey by broom and if I can't have a changing room one I'll just go in the nearest one like that one over there."

"You hop in there while they sort out proper facilities" said Ron "Holler 'girl in the shit house' as you go in so they can hide their er faces."

Angelica – and the rest of the team – trooped into the toilet marked 'prefect toilet'.

Half the team were prefects after all.

They were found changing rooms.

The refreshments were rudimentary even for light pre-match snacks.

"I see you're feeling the pinch of us taking boys old boy" said Ron to the gamesmaster, letting his eye stray across the meagre spread.

It looked as though it had been put together in as much of a hurry as the changing rooms.

Professor Hellibore then welcomed the visitors. He was a tall distinguished looking wizard with flowing white hair and beard who came to greet the players personally.

He did a double take at Angelica.

"Angelica! You must not play, you will harm your back!" he said.

Angelica stood tall.

"My back is healed, grandfather; as you should have noticed. Because Prince Peak has witches and wizards competent enough to do it. And you have, with due respect, NO say over whether I play or not."

"This Professor Snape must be a mighty wizard" said Hellibore hiding consternation and irritation.

"Oh he is, Grandfather, but he didn't need to fix it, my friend Jade did, she's his daughter."

Hellibore stared at Jade.

"You, a juvenile witch had the temerity to interfere with a serious medical condition?"

"Meh, not hardly serious Professor" said Jade dismissively "Runs in my family; we fix the babes as they're born. Not exactly a challenging piece of medical transfiguration, not like fixing a withered arm; that takes real concentration and to use a wand AND a bit of chanting. Any half competent transfigurist could do a hunch back; but of course I've had the benefit of a Hogwarts education up to my OWLs so I can see that anyone else might find it tricky. You mustn't feel bad about it, sir, it was much better for you not to try something that was out of your league. We're always taught that."

Hellibore was spluttering.

Ron firmly introduced the beaters and the keeper to remove him from Jade before he made the mistake of trying to punish her for being outspoken in her only barely veiled contempt for his abilities.

One of Hellibore's boys had gone for a wand to jinx Jade; her protego barrier was up before he had finished the spell and without doing more than flick a glance at him – and her hands in plain sight shaking hands with her opposite number – the boy rolled into a corner growing the tentacles of the jellied furnunculus curse and spherical from the rubber ball curse that Jade had been perfecting.

Angelica watched impressed. Casting wordlessly was something she was working on; casting wandlessly was really challenging.

Not even all the muggle studies hobby group got it perfectly right though Jem was capable with great concentration.

Angelica was determined that the Professor Hellibore who was justly famous would one day be her!

Angelica resented her grandfather's false pride that had denied her the chance of being taken to any other wizard who could have healed her back; he had condemned her to years of pain, and inability to play the same games as other children and to be the odd one out.

Prince Peak also scored as Ron casually introduced David Fraser,

"You know, the Triwizard champion….he's a professional referee as well so we thought we'd tote him along in case you didn't have a proper ref at your disposal."

The game was under way!

The Hellibore boys seemed to think it was going to be a joke; even calling and teasing to Edward that he was forced to play with little girls but that they'd show him respect.

This irritated Amarantha enough to show just how forceful and accurate she was with the bludger and the rude chasers soon found their work cut out. Edward and Amarantha were no great friends – the opposite – but a shared enemy was enough to make them work like clockwork together!

Jem, Angelica and Seag got on well enough; Seag and Jem were used to playing together in the holidays; and Angelica was a good buddy of Jade which made her a good buddy of the boys. Seag had been concerned that he was only a second best chaser, despite being used to play with Jem; for Seag had never been on Slytherin House's team; but he was rapidly learning that what Slytherin considered good enough for the team – what even Hufflepuff considered good enough for the team – was actually in a different class to Hellibore's entirely.

It was a school of about the same sort of size as Cackle's or now Prince Peak; there were probably forty to fifty boys here.

Which was to say slightly smaller than any one house in Hogwarts; and without the same competitive spirit that honed the skills. Seag had played scratch matches of the also-ran players that did not count for the Shield but which were encouraged as honing the skills of potential reserves or replacements; and if they did not count, the second seven took their matches very seriously for the psychological advantage they had.

And the fun of beating up Me-First Murray of Ravenclaw who loved being the great nephew of a famous quidditch playing witch.

And Ron had given his all to train the Prince Peak kids; an all also improved in teaching the youth team of the Chuddleigh Cannons who had risen up the ranks as some of Ron's youngsters came in to play full time; and who sorely missed him now he was teaching in what one of them described with more acrimony than accuracy as a 'school for foreign underage totty'.

The joy of the looks on the faces of the Hellibore crowd when they realised that the 'ickle frilly visitors' were blasting them was delightful; the score was totting up despite David calling penalties on Seag and Jem for the odd bit of stooging!

Jade could see the snitch.

It was fluttering along, parallel to the ground about four feet up.

Jade dove.

It was risky to do – in case the skinny Hellibore lad was as sharp eyed as she – but she shot past the snitch, only turning and pulling up at the last minute out of the Wronski Feint with her own twist, throwing herself into an Immelman turn – having learned about it from watching Star Wars – to grab the snitch as it was now coming towards her while the skinny lad crashed heavily into the ground.

That'd teach him to make the sneering comment he had about fancy letting girls be seekers because they had no sense of direction.

He sat up groggily.

"LOVE your sense of direction laddie-buck!" said Jade, gloating.

The Hellibore boys were NOT gracious in defeat – final score six hundred and seventy to four hundred and ten – and sulked throughout the grand feast afterwards.

"And this is one reason I wanted to leave" said Edward to his team in general.

"Attitudes come from the top" said Jade "Sorry, Angelica but my opinion's not repeatable. There are people present!"

"It's no worse than mine" said Angelica "Boy am I lucky to be a girl and have been in the right place at the right time!"

_Freiherr by the way means baron_


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

Jocelyn Barrington-Jones blinked as he read the 'Wizarding Times' he had snitched from the pocket of Baroness Thatcher's friend Lucius Malfoy.

He was right; there really WAS something funny going on.

And he might have thought that Mr Malfoy had set him up for a joke had not the photographs in the newspaper behaved most irregularly and moved around as though they were a video!

It was extraordinary!

There was an editorial with comments about an organisation called Odessa – Barrington-Jones had heard of Odessa, he read Frederick Forsyth – as though it were an ongoing concern of this wizarding community and led by someone called 'Prince Gerhardt' who as the editor said snidely seemed to know when he was beat by English juveniles having failed in all his attacks on both Hogwarts School and even on the continentally based Prince Peak Academy. Perhaps, said the editor, now that Professor Snape had published his full findings on a cure for werewolves in the 'Transactions of the Learned Society of Potioneers' it was time to invite foreign werewolves to participate in the same rather than having only a dodgy future as foreign wand-fodder sent to attack children because Prince Gerhardt was afraid of adult wizards.

The term 'wand-fodder' was interesting and easily translatable; wands presumably were used instead of guns.

A blow by blow account of the national duelling championships gave some idea of what could be done with wands. The commentator, a Dennis Creevey, sighed a little that the duels were not as exciting as if the best duellists in the land took part, but that of course the likes of Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger-Weasley had higher duty to perform than mere entertainment.

Malfoy again.

Malfoy came up again with a Madam Wendy Malfoy (representative of muggle affairs Greater London) was logged as calling someone a 'totty headed, niffler-brained gutter-sucking low-life' for calling for the banning of muggles from using electricity because his journey had been interrupted by power lines.

'"Honestly, I'm a muggle and I KNOW you have to do your geomancy carefully" Madam Malfoy said in scorn' read Barrington-Jones '"Sirius Black reckons you can actually tap it; it you're half way competent. Hmmm" said Madam Malfoy. Of course' went on the reporter 'Madam Malfoy has more advantages then many muggles being married to Lucius Malfoy's half brother and having such competent and well known sons as Abraxus and Hawke; but her point is quite cogent. And with more muggle relatives attending Rowan House we shall have muggles about who are sensitive about their use or misuse of electricity. But a ban on that is as serious to muggles as banning us from using magic; and nobody in this day and age could seriously suggest treating muggles as inferior beings, not without opening themselves to ridicule. Muggles are different; and they are always with us and we need to accept that fact and get on with our own lives without bellyaching about it'.

Presumably from context muggles referred to non wizarding folk; and as Madam Malfoy referred to herself as one it was not of itself an offensive term.

Barrington-Jones looked further; it was intriguing to see what jobs were wanted under Sits. Vac.

'Wanted, skilled handler of hippogriffs, must be able to handle feisty beasts'

Barrington-Jones Googled hippogriffs and was startled. How the blazes did they hide them?

The advert did continue,

'must have knowledge of disillusionment charm as live near busy muggle town'.

A spell to conceal them? Presumably.

'Wanted, freelance curse breaker urgent. Also required freelance hit wizard for amusing revenge'

Riiiiiiight.

'Wanted, apothecary's assistant must have minimum OWL in Potions and Herbology at grade 'E' or better.'

'Wanted: URGENT: for one term only, teacher of junior chanting to fill in for sick incumbent. Knowledge of playing piano advantage, apply Professor Snape, Prince Peak Academy, Prinzhorn Tiernsee region, Austria."

He had read two of those names already; Prince Peak and Professor Snape.

He looked them up.

Odessa; werewolves; it seemed ridiculous, but…..

Jocelyn Barrington-Jones hated mysteries he did not know about. And he was between jobs; working for Baroness Thatcher had been fine; even for John Major. But five years of Tony Blair stuck in the craw and he had resigned. Not because of politics; Barrington-Jones was a political animal but he had no politics, he was a true civil servant. He just couldn't bear working anywhere near a man who had a wife like that and who probably deserved her.

He wrote his name and address on a telegraph form added 'Experience at chanting can play piano to grade six' and sent it to the address given.

Whether that would reach it or not he was unsure.

It was jolly well worth a try though.

It was even true; though the chanting he knew of, supporting West Ham United might not be quite what they were looking for; and he had had piano lessons as a child, actually had been quite good.

Better to brush THAT one up.

Might stop him being found out so quick if he sounded like he knew what he was doing.

Jocelyn Barrington-Jones was startled when an owl swooped in his window several hours later. It presented him with a letter; which he read.

"Be at Zurich Railway Station at two-thirty on Friday sixteenth April; uniform is brown and flame, you shouldn't be able to miss the kids there; a prefect will show you the correct wall, walk through it as for the Hogwarts Express, prefects have badges, and like all the sixth form wear plain flame-coloured ties. Pay is as standard for professor of less than ten years standing, 3000 Galleons per year, 1000 Galleons for the term. It may be possible to negotiate longer term contract if all parties satisfied as our present incumbent is elderly. If you need the fare to get to Zurich let me know by return of owl and I will sent it to you in appropriate muggle money. Let me know in any case if you are still prepared to take up the post if you please; thank you, Severus Snape."

It was a spiky, scholar's hand, forceful and yet with a slight diffidence.

Jocelyn Barrington-Jones prided himself on reading character in handwriting; it was a skill he had taught himself and he was rarely wrong.

This man was used to command but was a man of modesty withal, probably highly efficient, very precise about detail. He would be lucky not to get caught out immediately.

Maybe he was also a man with enough humanity to answer a few questions before throwing him out. A man who would develop a cure for lycanthropy – and if it truly did exist it must be a terrible thing to suffer from – had to have compassion.

He was in the wind; it would be an adventure.

Suddenly he felt about six again, climbing over the wall at the back of his parents' house because he was tall enough to get up onto the hogshead full of compost that was there.

He wrote,

"Glad to come, look forward to meeting you, Jocelyn Barrington-Jones" and handed it gingerly to the owl.

The creature made a chirruping sort of noise, took the letter and flew off.

Professor Snape MUST be desperate. He accepted an ordinary telegram. If delivering letters by owl was normal. Or maybe it wasn't. Who could say?

Hogwarts, another reference to Hogwarts that was a school too, one walked through a wall?

He would find out no doubt.

The Marauders and Hilda waited for various children at the station.

They were expecting four new boys and a temporary professor.

The four new boys duly turned up as expected; Severus had seen various parents and organised it with very little confunding needed. Randolph's parents knew he was artistic and were delighted that he had won a place to a school where he might develop his talent; as indeed he would. Severus was keen to alter the emphasis of Prince Peak to include esoteric skills like musical magic and artistic magic as well as having excellence in chanting; it was to be a school for odd and quirky talents – like Erica's ability to make things happen by drawing it or Callum's propensity for drawing his visions – that perhaps one of those two might one day teach as well as basic skills like preparation of magical paints. And on the music side though music like painting should be developed for pleasure anyway, some people had demonstrated an ability to use music in the place of chanting, making repetitive musical phrases reiterate in the arithmantic energies of the notes a spell pattern. And research into such things was desperately needed, to learn alongside those who could do such things. As Seagh could and Jade was copying. Now the four boys had done a blood binding that Severus firmly knew nothing about who knew what Randolph might come up with in his painting? Even if, like Charlotte Malfoy he only painted superbly, there was a market for his skills.

Rory's grandfather had been sensible about magic and had promised to do everything to support Rory morally and persuade his daughter to pay for a different school and support him financially. The fees were not much different; and if anything slightly lower. Once the lessons available were explained the old man said cheerfully that he would tell his daughter that his grandson wanted to transfer to a place with gardening on the curriculum. She'd find that eminently believable.

The Lowther twins' mother had also been reasonable.

She was a sensitive and had often wondered about the odd goblin she had seen; and when her connections to a prominent wizarding family were explained she declared that it made a lot of things fall into place.

She was to have custody of the children anyway; and moreover the cable car incident had been the final straw for the Head of St Ninian's and he had sent a letter asking that the boys not be sent back. George and Peter had been subdued; their father had shouted at them and George had shouted back asking what did he expect when it was obvious he and mum didn't want them so that they could quarrel better.

Mr Lowther had been astonished that the twins even knew that they quarrelled and even more upset to find that their little sister Alison – whom both parents thought too young to understand what was happening – sent badly spelled and tearstained letters to school in Austria about how horrid it was.

He had moved out immediately rather than continue the quarrelling. It was all very messy, but at least the twins and subsequently Alison would learn all they were supposed to learn and would have every support from their new school even if St Ninian's was run, as Severus said, by a Ninny of St Ninian's not to recognise deeply unhappy children.

He had also gained cool points with the twins by turning up on a big black motorbike.

He had borrowed it from Sirius and liked it rather a lot.

Hence four little boys turned up together – Severus had promised an escort across Europe to all four, in the person of Erich – and were deposited, bubbling, on the train.

Here, having heard tales about Marauding, they declared themselves to be the Muggle Marauders.

Jocelyn Barrington-Jones was early; and scouted around to watch.

The child with a broken stick trailing out of her pocket trailing sparks was pounced on by a pretty, slight girl with light brown hair.

"DOZY Rosie!" she said "Rose Hubble WHAT have you done you little idiot? You've broken your wand" she said softly in an undertone, seizing it, and turned to the watching, horrified muggles and switched smoothly to German "How one hates it when the poor child's brothers stick fire crackers in her pocket, most dangerous and irresponsible!"

There were noises of sympathy from the muggles who moved off.

"Honestly Rose, THAT was a Hubble moment if you like!" said the girl wearing a Head Girl's badge with the same rather messy long black plaits and a distinct look of the younger child.

"Sorry Hilda, I must have sat on it" said Rose.

"After all the warnings you've had about wand safety? You bad child you're lucky not to lose a leg!" scolded Jade "I know the story of the witch who sat on her wand and subsequently gave birth to three puppies and a frog is apocryphal but eight out of ten casualties in St Mungo's are wand accidents you know! And most of the rest are potioneering accidents so that covers most Hubbles both ways" she added.

"Oy! Some of us are good at potions" said Hilda.

"Yeah, so are some Weasleys; like our Lynx here" said Jade "It's the exception that proves the rule."

"Snide little git that you are Jade Snape" said Hilda equably.

"I get it from my father together with my devastating lack of charm and intolerance of idiots" said Jade "Also my celebrated sneer. Here, I'll get that cousin of yours stowed before she accidentally breaks anything else minor like her leg or Zurich train station."

Hilda laughed.

"You really are the limit Jade!"

"Thank you" Jade inclined her head graciously, took Rose firmly by the hand adding "Let's get you through by attempting to go through the CORRECT wall this term shall we?"

"I shan't do THAT again" said Rose sounding injured.

"No, it is a saving grace of Hubbles and Weasleys that they don't usually make the same mistake twice." Said Jade.

Barrington-Jones had to make himself watch; there was a desire almost overwhelming him to look away. He fought it; and saw the two girls walk into and through a wall. Presently the older emerged again.

"Dumped her on Sandalla with a pack of exploding snap cards" she said.

Barrington-Jones went forward.

"Ah, er, good afternoon, my name's Jocelyn Barrington-Jones" he said.

"Oh Professor Barrington-Jones, good to meet you" said Hilda "Excuse me asking but do you use both barrels or should we call you Professor Jones?"

"It would be shorter I suppose, so long as you don't have one already" said Professor Jones.

"No, we have three technical Professors Weasley and several of Professors Snape; but the ladies use maiden names and the Weasley brothers came to an accommodation that the younger one uses his first name as Professor Ronald, he teaches quidditch anyway you see, so he can be a little more informal."

"Ah" said Jones.

"Excuse me but are you related to either Gwenog Jones of the Holyhead Harpies or Hestia Jones in the ministry and Order of the Phoenix?" asked Jade.

"I er, I do not believe I am related to either Miss er.."

"Snape, Jade Snape" Jade held out a hand "Hilda Hubble here our head girl but less pushy than me, Lynx Black-Weasley – most people only fire off one of her barrels too – Fabian Ramage, Senagra Gan Konal. We only have the one goblin in school at the moment but we are hoping to stick up a couple of fingers at Durmstrang by taking European ones, sir, are you all right? Only you're looking a little bemused."

"Poor man, you talk too much" said Lynx.

"Excuse me? From the girl who can talk my dad to a standstill, that's a little rich!" said Jade.

Lynx twinkled at Professor Jones.

"You have to squash Jade firmly sometimes Professor Jones" she said "She brings wordiness to a whole new dimension."

"Rather like Lynx" said Fabian "Don't worry sir, the OWL class is taken by Professor Snape; you only have the first and second years. And they're mostly harmless, watch Angel Hallow-Hellibore or AHHa as he's known for convenience, he's a young limb but there's no real vice in him. Only a new teacher is a sort of target for practical jokes."

"What's the er, policy on jokes?"

"Well unless there's a real danger in them – and they're amenable to being explained to – generally the attitude of yes, very funny Mr Hellibore, now since you have wasted my time I shall waste yours five reps of , well pick an appropriate poem, Kipling or Shakespeare get used most, or thirty to a hundred lines say. They charmed liquorice bats to fly out of Miss Bat's piano but she was a sport about it when one of the girls gathered them up with her wand and distributed them to everyone but the culprits and so they shared the rest with her. If she'd had a phobia then someone – probably a prefect – would have leapt on them for not finding out beforehand. 'cos teasing on a phobia is cruelty not joking. Ragging is all very well but it can go too far. I guess that's the golden rule; is it actually vaguely funny; did it stop short of being in bad taste; was anyone upset. Nobody will think any worse of you sir, if you've not taught much before, telling the culprits to come and see you after school for their impot and asking advice of another teacher or a prefect during the meanwhilst."

Young Ramage seemed a serious minded and thoughtfull boy.

"Thank you Mr Ramage. Now Miss Snape, You were er, talking about er Durmstrang, I'm not that knowledgeable" he said.

"You haven't missed much" said Jade "Katarina was there for her first six school years; she's with us to take NEWTs she said it's faintly more jolly than Azkaban but not much. O'course without dementors Azkaban is a sight better and with the policies to follow muggle ideas of trying to rehabilitate some criminals as well as just incarcerating them makes it better yet but if a school can be compared even in jest it's gotta be dire. And the types they turn out are little Nazis! Oh I suppose I'll have to explain that."

"I am familiar with the term Miss Snape."

"Oh good; it's such a convenient shorthand" said Jade. "Would you like to get on the train? We can chat to you later if you like on the journey but we ARE whippers-in for our errant brats."

"Oh far be it for me to stop you… I walk firmly at the wall?"

"Yes like at King's Cross… oh, you weren't at Hogwarts then? I'm sorry I didn't know you were a Hellibore boy."

Jones had no idea what a Hellibore boy was so he just looked wise and smiled before heading firmly for the solid looking wall and hoping he would not flinch.

Even these wizarding children made mistakes judging by the remarks made to the unfortunate Rose Hubble.

He was going through as he heard Jade's quite carrying voice say

"There's something awfully ODD about Professor Jones."

The Marauders did not have an opportunity to discuss Professor Jones as a small boy of about twelve approached.

He wasn't one of theirs.

"Excuse, you are English school?" he said

"We are" said Jade. The child had at least got wizarding paraphernalia with him which was always a good start. He was faintly Slavic in appearance.

"My name is Milos Milic and I want to defect from Durmstrang. I hear you describe them as Nazis; you are right. I read muggle history. I want to not be with Nazis."

"Okay kid, through the wall with you before any Durmstrang minders catch you" said Jade "We can argue the toss about whether you get paid for or not later. Well MOVE kid!"

Milos moved. He had no desire to be stopped and hied off back to Durmstrang!

"Well it's another boy anyway" said Jade half defensively "Five new ones this term; almost doubles numbers outside of the first!"

"Well a third as many again anyway" said Lynx, counting on her fingers.

"Believe me with that four from St Ninian's it's going to SEEM like it doubles numbers" said Jade.

"Morally but not arithmantically" said Lynx "And you our arithmancer too!"

Jade grinned.

"I can only do difficult things not mundane counting on my fingers!" she said loftily.

This earned her a well deserved poke.

There were only a few to come; then the marauders and Hilda too might mount the train.

Jade sat opposite Professor Jones and beamed at him.

"You were asking questions I think sir" she said.

"Uh, yes. Is this a new school?"

"Well kind of; it was Miss Cackle's academy for witches but when Agatha Cackle killed her sister and took it over on behalf of her grandson, Prince Gerhardt – that's the same Prince Gerhardt that the 'Times' is trying to get people to take notice of as a danger to all free wizards, do you take the 'Times' Professor Jones or are you more a 'Daily Prophet' man?"

"I don't read the 'Daily Prophet'" said Jones truthfully.

"Oh good, it's awfully hard to respect someone who does now there's a serious alternative" said Jade "The Prophet doesn't half toady to whoever is flavour of the month; the Times tells it like it is even if that's not popular. People don't WANT to believe in Odessa, not so soon after the Voldemort years ended; but we didn't fight him to get him replaced by dictators at least as bad – worse actually in that they have all that German efficiency behind them – did we?"

"Um well, nobody wants to be ruled by a dictator of any flavour I guess" said Jones floundering.

"well, anyway, Madam Hardbroom escaped and went to dad, who's her nephew and we came out and fought the dark wizards and witches here; and they had a contingent of troops too, a whole platoon – that's thirty odd – a dozen werewolves and twenty stuurmzauberern."

"Stuurm – what?"

"Stormwizards. In the second muggle war they called troops stormtroopers and there was a close relationship between the SS mystics and the supremacist wizards of Gellert Grindelwald. And Gerhardt's his grandson, kind of the young Seigfried. All charm of manner and callous as hell; and not concerned about attacking kids either. Oh dear, I suppose I'm scaring you off thinking it might not be nice if they attack again; but as you're a chanter you can just boost everyone else's spells from a safe place if you're not happy being a combat wizard sir."

"Miss Snape I think perhaps that you have already guessed some things about me that make you look quizzically on me." Said Jones.

"Yes sir. I think you're a muggle sir and couldn't chant to mend your bedsocks."

"You can mend bedsocks with chanting?"

"If you know what you're doing you can do 'most anything with chanting" said Jade "Specially against curses. Dad is the only serious teacher you know; Miss Bat teaches little ones not very well but it gives them a start. I shouldn't think you could do any worse actually if you tell dad and get him to go through the syllabus with you, specially if you can actually play the piano."

"Yes I can."

"Little kids find it easier to use a tune you see than a rhythm because it's something to tie the cadences and timing to" said Jade. "All the music's there; the notation's identical for both peoples. It all came from the monks in the first place you see. A lot of formal sung chants are actually a bit Gregorian in format. You can handle that, can't you?"

"I – er yes I suppose so" said Jones.

"Do you mind telling me WHY sir?" said Jade "The muggle teacher who gatecrashed Hogwarts was pretending to be her magical twin who had been murdered – by Odessa as it happens – and she wanted revenge."

"Nothing like so exciting I'm afraid" said Jocelyn Barrington-Jones "I knew there was something funny going on and it was to do with a man called Lucius Malfoy and I whipped a copy of 'Wizarding Times' out of his pocket. And I saw the ad and I applied. And here I am."

"I say!" Jade was impressed "That's most AWFULLY resourceful. That's unwontedly careless of Uncle Lucius too. How are you enjoying the wizarding world?"

"Quite a lot between being confused and concerned that a kid like you can look at me with the same look I've seen on SAS men's faces fresh out of the Falklands."

Jade shrugged.

"Some of us vowed to lose our childhood so others did not need to. Because the grown ups weren't, at least not enough of them. Daddy and friends were some of the few who stood against Voldemort. Oh, you don't know anything about him do you? Well I'd better start at the beginning, half a mo" she got out her wand, summoned a couple of mugs and filled them from the end of her wand with pumpkin juice. "I LOVE summoning spells" she added.

Jocelyn Barrinton-Jones was treated to the whole unexpurgated story of Voldemort's rise; and Jade had barely wound up her narrative when the train screeched to a halt.

"Oh no not again" she said "It's too far on for the driver to be visiting his mum again…'scuse me"

The Marauders faced the group of alpine rescuers.

"Gnadige Fraulein, the driver will not take us up, but there are climbers hurt; you can cut hours off our time to reach the high pass" said the leader.

"Of course you will mount and ride with us" said Jade "Will one of you wish to be in the cab to indicate where you wish to stop?"

"Thank you; I will" said the leader.

Jade took the others back to Professor Jones. He looked nice and mugglish.

"These volunteers need a lift to the pass to do a rescue, sir" she said "We shall stop again when we are far enough."

This part of the line ran through muggle space on a muggle line; it was an occupational hazard that there should be people in need of aid.

And Jade would have to speak to the driver about rendering aid when it was asked.

They were not aboard too long after all; and dismounted full of thanks. Jade wished them the best of fortune and the best too to the injured climbers and asked if there was any further assistance they might render.

"Thank you but a helicopter is on its way; only it was held up at another accident" said the leader.

"Tourists!" said Jade with as much contempt as a seasoned veteran.

"Alas they think a little hill walking qualifies them to tackle the Alps; lebewohl und Danke Schöne Gnadige Fraulein!"

It was not long before they came to the rack rail; and Jones was fascinated.

"Well I see the rail enthusiasts club has another member" said Jade dryly "I suppose you didn't grow up on the Reverend Awrdry books did you?"

"Yes I did as a matter of fact."

"Then be pleased to meet Culdee and Harry. Harry also named for Harry Potter as well as for Number six, later renamed Patrick. We left the 'Lord' off so our engine shouldn't get conceited… yes I am joking sir, so far as I'm aware an engine is a piece of machinery though the goblin drivers and engineers swear they have personality."

"You keep talking about goblins"

Jade gave him a sideways look.

"What do you see looking at Senagra?"

"A girl who's rather petite for her apparent age; dark hair and eyes, a little sallow, gamine in appearance, perhaps a foreigner of a type I can't specify."

"And her hands and feet?"

"Uhhh, same sallow complexion on the hands."

"Lumme!" said Jade "You're a real hundred percent muggle and not even a sensitive; that's WELL brave of you sir! We usually attract the odd sensitive who can see the long hands and feet of goblins and their pointy ears and such; but kudos to you not only to work stuff out but to have the cast iron elephant sized ones to come and find out too!"

"Thanks – I think" said Barrington-Jones.

"Well I still reckon you'll run the chanting classes as well as the poor old Bat" said Jade "She ought to be pensioned off but she loves it so and dad's an old softy, and don't tell him I said so!"

"Er, no" said Barrington-Jones.

It was all a little bit out of his control; but at least he knew more now than almost any muggle; and probably more even than the Prime Minister!

Considering Blair's attitude to the Wizarding World if Jocelyn Barrington-Jones but knew it he knew a LOT more than the Prime Minister.

There are none so blind as those who will not see; and those who cannot see manage to find out a lot with some judicious digging.

Jade duly delivered the temporary professor to Professor Snape with the explanation,

"This is Professor Jones, sir, and he's a complete muggle and not even a sensitive and I think he's really brave and I can't see he could so any worse than Madam Bat so he might as well stay, mightn't he?"

Severus questioned Professor Jones thoroughly; took him through the theory; heard him play and sing and shrugged.

"If you want to stay and teach for the term and you stick to the syllabus I shouldn't think you'll have too many problems" he said "Third year work you couldn't do; but really for the first two years it's little more than singing practice to loosen voices, train lungs a little, cover some theory and gain a feel for timing. I'll get a sixth former to supervise the last couple of classes where they actually expect to produce a result from a chant."

"I would I think like to stay" said Jones "It seems to me that what I've heard of it, this Odessa could have an impact on our world too."

"Ah. Common sense, that uncommon commodity" said Severus "And you are right. We hope to contain this nuisance before it impacts on the muggle world; but we may not. Voldemort caused enough trouble that erupted into the muggle world, let us hope we can prevent such a thing from happening again. Are you of importance in the muggle government?"

"I used to have some ears; but now I have resigned in disgust I am nobody" said Jones.

"Well then perhaps there may be a post in Rowan House – for muggle relatives of the magically talented – to teach civics and law" said Severus "Important for BOTH sides. For those who are of our world but not of it need to know where they stand in relation to the law of our world too. And teaching cynicism – oh sorry I mean civics – gives kids a healthy distrust of all bodies politic."

Jones laughed.

"As well they have need!" he agreed.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

The Marauders were idly discussing what Odessa might try next.

"After all they sent the spy in the shack that Wulf and I uncovered thanks to the charcoal burners" said Jade "Then after the great werewolf snatch there was a fellow in an invisibility cloak that Fido Fraser sniffed out 'cos it's not a proper one like ours…."

"Be fair, until you started fiddling with Feyspace there was only one proper one and that was a grand artefact" said Fabian.

"Well yeah, okay, there is that" said Jade.

"Then there were the scrying devices that were left by the so-called broom salesman that Severus found" said Lynx "And it OUGHT to have been us finding them, how humiliating was that finding out over the holidays that he'd found them?"

"We were rather preoccupied with the caves" said Jade "Did you hear what he did with them?"

"No; I supposed he'd destroyed them."

"Au Contraire mes amis, he mounted them inside muggle lavatory pans in Zurich" said Jade.

There was a shout of laughter from her fellows.

"Severus really does take the biscuit when someone irritates him!" chuckled Senagra.

"Sometimes" said Fabian "The medium IS the message."

They went to talk to Wulf; who could be assumed to have a better idea of how the enemy's mind worked.

"Let us summarise" said Wulf "The attempt was made to take Hogwarts with Huorns and werewolves; it failed so he fell back on plan B to take his grandmother's desire, Cackle's. I have to go on what I have been told here of course; I do not come into the story yet. Cackle's is taken, Hardbroom is tracked down, she and the children are, they believe silenced. Marauders, I find as I tell this I cannot guarantee to know the enemy mind; the attacking of children is incomprehensible to me."

"Remember they were not children but impediments" said Jade "THEIR children they will see as sacred, not to be risked or harmed; and they would get very narked if we treated their own as they have treated ours. But our children do not count, half of them are mudbloods and they have been contaminated by associating with goblin trash too."

"I will bear that in mind….anyway, there are defenders on the mountainside, my men and sundry wizards, who are there to prevent the approach of any other forces, since the school is an anti-apparating zone and there are those too on the lookout for brooms. But we do not expect an attack; we do not know it is a school or that Madam Hardbroom has been supposedly killed but we are told that of the opposition who escaped they have been hunted down and killed before they can fetch reinforcements. When Prince Gerhardt comes tumbling down the mountain in a panic we are afraid; how is it that our Prince has been so discommoded? They must be evil wizards and hard ones at the castle who invaded by strange and nefarious means, perhaps a gate?" he shrugged "It wasn't so cohesive a train of thought as that but that sums up the feelings. We all changed form to attack and bring down those who would dare oppose our glorious leader. On the top of the castle was this terrifying figure chanting and crackling with energy; our stormwizards cast their best spells and died to a man. There were terrifying noises and my men fell, as did I with a burning pain in my flank though I knew no spell that could do that. And the wizards of the castle came forth; and in my pain I cycled between man and beast and the beast smelled and the man remembered and I made myself stay man for I could not attack a pregnant woman. And so instead I was captured and expected torture or a show trial; but I would not betray my principles for what I feared" he smiled down at Jade as she snuggled up to him. "And then became the first day of the rest of my life. And one of the first things that happened was that I was offered a cure. Yes, I wondered if it were a trick; but how could I refuse? Severus said it was offered regardless of whether I co-operated or not. I took it. And THEN I had the measure of the people who had captured me; for in my agony of the cure he put his arms around me and took some of the pain onto himself – I saw his face – to allow me to bear it. None of my own people would have done that for one of their own let alone a prisoner. And that was the extent of the torture I was to face; a torture that had positive results. I was stubborn in my loyalties; I do not give loyalty lightly. I had to be shown that it was I who was betrayed for believing in a sham. And there are others of my kind" he added seriously "I don't mean werewolves, but officers of Odessa and men who believe; and who have honour that they know not is ridiculed by the actions of the leadership. Those who honestly believe that Severus stands for dictatorship over honest Europeans. They are the dangerous foes, for they are fighting for the survival of all they hold true and good. If we can win them over it would be good. Such ones were Hauptman Nachtigall, who was as loyal as any man until his own betrayal, and he saw with his own eyes that werewolves were treated as scum."

"Why did that not erode your own loyalty, Wulf?" asked Senagra.

"Because for one thing it was virtually all I had ever known; and for another I believed that when our glorious cause was won we should have lands of our own to roam in unmolested by other humans. Now I believe that was never the intention. I believe that a few of the best might have been extracted as bodyguards and as a precaution in case numbers needed building up again; and the rest of us would have been slaughtered. We have been spent like water so far; they care nothing. When they want more they can have a werewolf bite several people. Anyway, back to the summation; they licked their wounds and tried to find out what they could of this Severus Snape. Not easy I suspect; even in England Severus is a private, even secretive, individual. But they could watch his house in the long summer holiday when he returned, and see his family. And with other things they discover his wife is a Malfoy, that he is of a pure bred line himself, and surmise that the children might be useful. So many daughters; they do not have to be sane to have a womb. You see I am managing to think in the coldly expedient way without taking into account that the assets are children. And when he returns, why it is just one man, his adult son, an adult daughter – as I expect they saw Dione, possibly my love, thinking her to be Jade Snape if they actually checked the school records, for Dione could pass still as a schoolgirl and she is more Malfoy looking than you."

"That's a point actually" said Jade "I'm the plain one."

"You are beautiful" said Wulf "You are the loveliest of the family!"

"But then you're biased" grinned Jade "I've never really minded being plain with a very pretty sister; I'm cleverer than Lydia."

"You are lovelier for your mobile intelligent face, your wonderful eyes that change colour with your mood….."

"Wulf, can you two do that on your own time please?" said Lynx "Only this is kinda important."

"Sorry" said Wulf "Anyway, the attack, strategically sound; dementors to take out any real opposition and storm wizards in case the two men are left standing, just to mop up and to escort the witches who would be in place for the next term. And still, as Severus said, failing to understand the English psyche; that questions. We are not raised to question. We are raised to obey. Another reason I did not resent the compound much; it was a question of necessity. I was told so; therefore it must be true."

"Gosh, how awful to believe everything you're told just because someone in authority says so!" gasped Lynx "Why I automatically assume they've got their own axe to grind and are probably at least STRETCHING the truth!"

"Precisely; you are quintessentially English" said Wulf. "And so, the witches and Raute or whatever the fellow's name was expect a pushover because they have been told that this is what will be. Meeting a determined opposition – some of whom were not on their lists of who was there – was a shock. Germans do not react well to being surprised; it is not 'in ordnung.' And then the counter blows. The forward base – disappears. Not just the personnel, the materiel, but a perfectly circular bite of land is GONE. Terrifying. And the prisoners contemptuously deposited at a base NONE of them knew existed; unconscious so they can't explain how, hogtied and without warning right in the middle. Equally terrifying. The lead witch had her theories that we were irritated because we had lost people to dementors; she could not and would not accept Nannerl Schwefel's reasonable deduction that if there were no dementors we must have found a way to destroy them. It is by the way an excellent spell! They report also that the defenders are immune to the killing curse. That must give pause for thought! And so, these things have happened; attacks now do not merely fail but counter attacks have been made. The prince cannot afford to act precipitately though he is a hot man and I think would have liked to have thrown the full weight of his forces against Prince Peak. Calmer heads would have convinced him that this is a bad idea; he starts to try to gather information. Three times he sends spies – the first, well he was only sent in punishment for losing Irmi so that is unsurprising that he failed. The next disappears – what did David do with him, by the way?"

"Legilimensed him and challenged him to a death duel" said Jade laconically "David's like that; he won't kill someone out of hand. For which I'm glad. And for that matter I understand he only turned him into a goat. Only without his brain intact; he really is a goat. Suitable."

"I heard he was turned into a nanny as more use to one of the peasant farmers" said Fabian.

"That wouldn't surprise me" said Jade.

"Well I approve; David is a man of moral scruples as well as absolute ruthlessness. That is what Odessa cannot understand; that you can be both" said Wulf. "And the scrying device idea went as you English say, quite literally down the pan. Gerhardt will be getting jumpy; he MUST have knowledge. I think he will next send in someone apparently in the open. Are we certain that this supposed muggle teacher is not a cleverly designed plant?"

"Yes; dad legilimensed him from guzzle to zorch" said Jade "And I don't believe there's anyone on the planet who could fool dad; because HE had to fool Voldemort. But set him little traps that would appeal to the German mind by all means, love; there might be someone out there better than dad. If he is, I admire him for it; because his knowledge of the English muggle world is seamless. And THAT makes me think he's not a plant; I can see German efficiency having an excellent cover story but not to the extent of being a muggle. It has a kind of Englishness to it as a double bluff – aha, they've uncovered that I'm a fraud so they won't look further for the other fraud – but it is rather to English I think."

"Yes; that kind of reasoning makes my head ache" said Wulf "And so it would my Prince. Nevertheless, in case he has English allies who might devise such a tortuous plot I will as you suggest set little traps. If he is innocent he will not even notice them, so he will not be hurt in spirit nor feel untrusted. And we watch. And we also watch Katarina. She might be a convinced agent."

"That is paranoia" said Jade "I'VE legilimensed her; and I'm the only witch my age who's capable of that level of either legilimensy or occlumensy of that I am certain because I'm the only witch my age who's been studying it almost ten years because of the peculiar circumstances of out blood group. They must be creeped out by the great werewolf snatch too."

"Somebody passed a remark in front of Major Raute that he could at least have brought them more werewolves to experiment on; the sort of jocular remark made in jest by an Englisher that he will have taken very seriously" said Wulf "They will assume that you tortured the location of the base out of me and took the ones with children as a nice breeding population of experimental animals. That is something else they want to find out; the nature of the experiments and whether you are breeding super-werewolves."

Jade stared.

"Oh WHAT? Isn't it obvious that the reason to want werewolves is to test a cure on them?"

"The film you showed me in the holidays, if I may misquote it, the concept of curing will pass them by because making better troops to the Germans is very, very simple" said Wulf. "Curing werewolves brings you no advantage that they could see; you have taken a fearsome fighter and made him….ordinary. Maybe even pacific out of his lupine form, what can that bring?"

"Uh, the concept of doing something decent and right really isn't in their lexicon is it?" said Jade.

"The concept of 'noble' to Prince Gerhardt is to strut and look good" said Wulf. "He could not understand the concept of risking life daily in a horrible position of having to gain and betray trust – and I myself was shocked until I understood that Voldemort betrayed trust constantly himself – to overthrow evil, in a quiet and unlauded way; nor the concept of developing a difficult potion just to help people out. To aid Remus, a friend, he could understand I think: but why not use the method that had been experimented with on the child Tala he would think. Severus is noble in more ways than Gerhardt could possibly understand. And that is why Severus will ultimately win; because he has a smaller band of followers but to them and from them he has absolute trust and loyalty. Many may give loyalty to Gerhardt but as he gains defeats he will be less and less loyal back and that will ultimately begin to lose the trust of his men."

"And in a couple of years we'll see if we can't push that a little" said Jade "Work on his officers to consider coups; divide and conquer. Me on the inside; you on the outside. Only way it can work."

The film quote missed Wulf though the others laughed.

"Sometimes my love you can be very terrible in your ruthlessness" he said softly "But you are also quite right."

The spy duly arrived.

Severus held a meeting with the Bloodgroup.

"Hans Schmidt is our new groundsman" he said "He came looking for a job for an expanding school, as some kind of odd job man. We have adequate caretakers in Strang and Herr Guttmann; so I offered him the job of groundsman. He is of course Odessa and is busy looking for our troops and our experimental facilities that are masked by the apparently innocent school."

"Well he'll have a job finding what doesn't exist" said David "Why are we keeping him by the way?"

"What, my senior tactician missed that one?" laughed Severus "we know who he is!"

"Of course" said David "Which means that what we have been anticipating is now reality and so we can relax a little. But not too much. I would send more than one spy; two or three at least, perhaps not even knowing each other; the possible duplication of information would act as confirmation and would be a worthwhile thing in case one was found out."

"The English have always had a remarkable record for gathering intelligence" said Wulf "The use of multiple redundancy systems is perhaps the reason."

"You think it unlikely then?" asked David.

"The Prince has lost several assets; I think he will prefer not to risk too many more" said Wulf. "If he had any inkling what experiments you actually perform on werewolves, the sensible course would be to send a small group begging for a cure and let them then rove around while in your care, custody or whatever, provided with kobold-made lock picking tools and such. But that assumes that he would consider this as your goal. Of course, he might yet send such volunteering as experimental subjects in return for asylum. That would be believable; we took asylum in return for being troops, remember."

"That then is to be looked out for" said Severus. "I also purpose to feed disinformation to this unexpected asset. He will soon learn that we are only a school and have no troops stashed away; he has only to wheedle his way into the kitchen and ask the elves after all."

"If he would trust the information of lesser beings" said Wulf.

"Surely whatever he looks on them as being he acknowledges that they feed all the castle?" said Jade "They have knowledge about what they do; feeding our faces is their main task after all."

"Possible; but that is a flexibility I confess passed me by" said Wulf "And if I do not think of an option for finding information it is possible that nor would another of my culture."

"I should think he ought to discover that we do not bring in enough food to have troops here even if he postulates the existence of secret underground facilities" said Severus "But what I want is for you all to be co-operative and pleasant as you would of course with a real groundsman. Be tedious about your work, your hopes, your aspirations, enthuse about having local people on the staff and feeling all continental, be long winded about how rack railways work and the railway club. Describe the joys of raising Mimblulus mimbletonia from seed and the risks of repotting it and so on. You get the drift."

"Bore him to tears so he's off guard for when anything major really happens; or we give him a rare moment of excitement by mentioning something that sends him off reporting in an orgasm of lower levels of boredom" said Lynx.

"I wouldn't have put it quite like that but essentially yes" said Severus.

"Are they no' going to get pissed if he keeps reporting 'nothing tae report' dad?" said Seag.

"Probably" grinned Severus "And then we watch him sweat. And see if they do anything to stir us up too."

"Should we no' try tae turrrn him the noo?"

"We'll watch him carefully first son; if he seems a truly decent type, then yes. But I suspect he's as hard boiled as they come. We'll see."

Hans Schmidt, as he called himself, had no reason to complain about the position.

It was below him but then needs must. He would put up with the insolences of the English children and consider that one day he would be a victor and they his prisoners.

He was taken aback to receive very little in the way of insolence.

The pupils said 'guten tag' to him if they saw him with varying degrees of appalling accent; and they called him 'Herr Schmidt' politely and if they had occasion to come and ask for a task to be done said 'please' and 'thank you' as if they were addressing one of his actual social rank. This was gratifying.

It was less gratifying that they were equally polite to the odd house elf that he saw.

There were also younger children about; and he asked one of the girls,

"Excuse me, Gnadige Fraulein, is there here also a kindergartan?"

He had happened to ask Irmi because her very Germanic looks made him feel more comfortable.

"Oh not formally, Herr Schmidt" said Irmi "These are the children of various of our professors here and also the caretaker's grandchild and a few from the village who have the talent and come therefore to mix with others of our kind. A well off wizarding family owns a Gasthof near the railhead. There are spectacular caves under the mountain; some of our sixth formers found them, and they are to be opened to view. Is it not exciting? We have not been allowed to see them, we junior forms, until all is made safe with walkways, but the sixth have described them, all filled with stalactites and stalagmites now let me see, TITES hold tight to the ceiling and MITES might grow up to reach them; it is a very English mnemonic but we are of course very English here. And I had never before known how to tell one from the other, is it not a clever way?"

Schmidt gave a non-comittal smile. He had been ready to listen with both ears about caves under the castle but if they were to be opened to view? There could be no connection, nor could they be suitable to use as barracks. He would go and see them for himself of course. Stupid brat, more interested in the limestone formations than the tactical uses of such!

What also irritated him was the beech tree in the yard; it was untidy.

Well his job as groundsman was to tidy things up; so he duly fetched an axe.

He was unprepared, after a couple of swings, to have everyone pouring out of the greenhouse screaming at him to stop.

He was confronted by a most furious animal – how disgusting, a goblin halfbreed! – who said,

"Herr Schmidt, what do you think you are doing?"

"What's it to you?" demanded Schmidt "I answer to Professor Snape, not to other servants."

There was a collective gasp from the children. What had he said wrong?

The animal narrowed its eyes.

"Schmidt, we are in general inclined to be moderately egalitarian to everyone; but permit me to remind you that the groundsman does not speak in that tone to a highly qualified Professor. I asked you a question – oh thank you Seag" as the youth started chanting over the axe cuts, a young woman in leafy garb and sobbing hysterically leaning on the bole "- and I expect you to answer it."

"I thought the tree looked untidy there so I thought I'd just chop it down. It's in the way."

"It is precisely where it is because its position was chosen by the nymph who inhabits it" said Ellie coldly "Your job is to keep the grounds tidy, Schmidt, not to take it upon yourself to do wholesale resculpturing of the grounds or rebuilding the castle or anything of the sort. If you are given orders to chop wood or cut down trees or move stone then it becomes your job. I wish you to apologise to Fagia the nymph for abusing her tree."

He goggled.

"Well, they're not beings are they?" he said.

There was a collective hiss and almost a growl from the OWL class.

"We consider anyone who can reason to be a being" said Ellie coldly "Which tends to exclude therefore only most graduates of Durmstrang who moreover rarely achieve an educational high of above five NEWTs. That ordinary uneducated wizards should be infected with their crede is disturbing; but you shall learn better ways here."

"I apologise" said Schmidt, it has to be said rather sulkily "I did not know it was a special tree."

"Another time if you do not know, ask" said Ellie.

"Excuse me Professor, how many NEWTs do you have then?" Schmidt, forcing himself to phrase it politely, asked. He could not help himself.

"Seven; though only one at 'O' grade, the rest at 'E'" said Ellie who had applied as an external student to take Herbology NEWT through Rowan House last year since she was anticipating teaching it. She would have preferred to have taught Geomancy or Comparitive magic; but Herbology was needed and Ellie was a practical little person who was adaptable and flexible.

That silenced him.

That a half-breed like this should have so many NEWTs at high grades was preposterous! Surely she was lying? And yet it would be something that was a matter of record, that the headmaster would check, she would not dare to lie.

He nodded curtly.

"Well I have work to do" he said.

"Good; you had better apply yourself to that than to personal projects that are not required or desirable" said Ellie coldly.

She could, after all, scarcely miss the way he had looked at her.

Schmidt was sulking somewhat. He was expected to take orders from a half breed who was as snide to him as any pure bred witch with similar qualifications who would at least have a right to be snide; and there was a full breed goblin in the sixth form too, and skilful questioning of the younger ones had elicited the information that she was studying six NEWTs too!

Indeed only one of the lower sixth seemed to be studying a standard three NEWTs, four were studying four, one was studying five, three were taking six and one preposterous girl was taking seven!

And they were all taking an extra OWL this year in addition!

It was something of an eye-opener.

Of course Schmidt was not to know that most of the ones taking higher numbers of NEWTs were creamed off from the best of the best at Hogwarts.

It was however going to be harder than he thought if he had to be respectful in manner towards creatures like that who demanded respect for their – actually respectable – academic achievements.

It wasn't right that they should be given the opportunity to show up decent folk of pure blood.

Lothar Dunkelwald – to give him his true name – had taken four NEWTs and had 'O' for one of them and 'E' for the rest.

However it was his duty. And he would do it, though he would complain when he reported that he had not been told that such indignities were to be his!

He had a further indignity to swallow when he was told off by some half elf for being in the school where he should not be.

He had tried to brush her aside with a

"Don't talk to me like that elf" when he had been hoisted into mid air and found himself with too many legs and a horrible boneless form!

"And YOU Schmidt don't talk to ME like that!" said Sirri crisply. "Just who do you think you are? You are only the groundsman; learn your place! I am the housekeeper here and you are, most definitely, WELL below me in the pecking order. And though you rank with the kitchen staff, let me tell you they are not to be interrupted nor interfered with by you. I don't mean cadging treats; that is permissible so long as you do not skive off work too long to do so. But you are not to keep them from their tasks. Equally if anyone keeps you from your tasks you are entitled to complain. But your tone is insolent; I am releasing you from the form now and I will expect an apology. First I explain why you are out of order; and you have no option but to listen. This passage leads to the bedrooms of some of the little girls. Obviously it is most inappropriate that you should traverse it! Moreover, since it is a family passage it is out of bounds to any save those invited by Professor Snape and his family. And were you a new PROFESSOR I should stop you from using it. You have no call to be indoors anyway at this moment; so after your apology I shall hear your explanation."

Schmidt dropped to the floor and resumed his own form smoothly with a twitch of the little creature's wand.

They let it use a WAND?

"If I have offended I apologise" he said grudgingly.

The Prince was SO going to have to pay him more for this!

"And you were here why?"

"I was looking for the kitchen to get a cup of coffee. I got lost."

The lie was smooth; and Sirri knew it was a lie. But it was plausible.

"Come then; I will direct you" she said, firmly taking his elbow and enjoying in a perverse way the feeling of disgust that communicated itself to her by the way he stiffened and cringed.

Schmidt had to drink a cup of coffee – a generous pint steiner of it – that he did not want.

He did have a means of revenge however. Or so he thought!

He sent a school owl to the nearest Polizei Magisch to tell them that there were elves, goblins and half goblins at the school in possession of wands.

Two Polizei Magisch duly arrived and demanded to see Professor Snape.

Severus saw them in the yard.

"Yes?" he said, coldly.

"Herr Professor Snape?"

"Yes?"

"I regret to inform you that you are under arrest charged with permitting goblins, elves and other animals to bear wands on your premises. They too are to consider themselves under arrest."

Those looking gasped. Was this the way it was to be done? Several children loosened wands surreptitiously.

Severus laughed.

"I regret to inform you, Herr Polizist, that you have no jurisdiction over these premises nor over the cable car, nor the railhead nor the carriages of the train that carries the children to school" he said "For I have registered all these things with the Austrian Ministry of Magic as under English Law as diplomatic premises and exempt from such antiquated laws. Whoever issued you with such a warrant was out of order and I shall lodge a complaint forthwith with the Austrian Government. As you are on British soil right now, let me also issue you with a warning that I could have you sent to Azkaban for making such inflammatory racist remarks. I suggest you leave before I start asking what names I should personally complain about."

"We need to see a written document to that effect" persisted one.

Severus sighed.

"Wait without; I will not have menials in my office" he said.

He brought down the agreement signed by prominent members of the Austrian Ministry and sealed under the department of foreign affairs.

They left. They had little choice.

Severus made them walk; he did not have to permit them the use of HIS cable car.

It was a stiff climb.

Their uniform robes would probably suffer. It was petty; but he felt petty.

The school relaxed.

Schmidt was furious! He had not realised they might arrest Snape too, but that would have been perfect, creating just such an opening to get another head in, in his place!

He had no idea that the pupils would never have permitted such an outrage to take place.

"They have some pretty rum laws out here don't they?" said Lynx "Not really CIVILISED yet."

"They can't HELP not being British" said Fabian.

"What do you expect of people whose only choice of school is a pit like Durmstrang?" said Jade.

"One has to pity them really" said Senagra.

This was all for the ears of Schmidt to make him seethe the more.

"Good job you covered everything dad" added Jade.

"I knew the extent of the outmoded law here" said Severus "We need to travel across Austria; so we need to be protected as we travel. Having modes of transport declared diplomatic entities is nothing new. And I own all the land from the railhead up so I can have it all registered as British property. The Austrian Ministry gets a healthy revenue for doing so; which pleases everyone. Now who can have been so ill-advised and spiteful as to try to make the Austrian Polizei behave so illegally?"

He was looking around.

"It wasn't me!" said Morgana indignantly as his gaze crossed her "I didn't even know about their laws!"

Senagra had bounded up to Amarantha Keil.

"Why should I waste my time over such a trivial piece of mischief making?" demanded Keil "I may not like your sort but I also know that Professor Snape covers himself every which way and wouldn't dream of opening himself to legal action. Whatever else I have every respect for his efficiency."

"Why thank you so much Miss Keil" murmured Severus with heavy irony.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

Severus well knew who had been so mean as to try to get the non humans arrested; Sirri had told him of her encounter with the exploratory Herr Schmidt.

He needed closer watching.

It was a job for a house elf; and Severus asked if Hermione's free elf Rosli would care to do the job.

"Rosli is happy to!" squeaked Rosli "Rosli remembers Lothar Dunkelwald from Durmstrang whatever he calls himself here! He was a not nice boy!"

"Be careful" said Severus.

Rosli sniffed.

"Humans is clumsy; elveses isn't clumsy!" she declared.

Elven invisibility was very good; and probably drew on feyspace if one might but investigate it!

Rosli reported back giggling that Dunkelwald had reported to someone via scrying device and had ranted about having to take orders from a variety of half breed creatures and actually apologise to them and to some dippy nymph because he had damaged her stupid tree. He demanded more pay or he would walk out on the job.

"Your duty to the Prince is beyond price" said his contact.

"The hell it is! My duty to the prince is worth five thousand galleons a year; I'll take double for the duration of this job or you can find yourself another spy and I'll take my services as an investigator to America where they know how to pay for what they get!" said Dunkelwald "I may believe in the Prince and be loyal to the cause but I'm not about to be pushed around by bloody animals without a significant economium for my extreme tolerance!"

"I'll see what I can do."

"Have the answer by tomorrow or I quit. NO cause is worth being turned into a woodlouse by a wand-bearing elf and told that I rank equal to the kitchen elves!"

There was a long silence.

"You jest surely!" the voice was shocked.

"I do not! I have been ticked off for insolence by a half goblin Professor with seven NEWTs and I have been abused, transfigured and called down by a half elf that calls itself housekeeper. It looked at me as though I were the elf and it a person! It is not to be borne without monetary incentive!"

"I – yes I quite see your point. Have you not complained to the Head? Surely he cannot permit such outrages?"

"Permit? He encourages it! Else he would not have a half-breed teaching! And the children, they speak to this half elf with deference as to a Professor! He is insane, I tell you , insane; but with the insane cunning to arrange diplomatic immunity for the school AND its travel arrangements so nothing can be done legally! The Prince cannot be correct that this is the man who has opposed him, he is a madman, and so far as I can see so far there is not the slightest indication that he has any troops with him. The staff are mostly young witches and wizards, a large number for so small a school and a few older ones. I'd say he had a cadre of staff and has expanded the subjects he teaches with some barely out of school themselves. They CANNOT expect such a level of academic excellence as they aim for; I cannot understand it, any of it. They are all insane perhaps!"

"They are English which comes close to the same thing. Have you come across a man called Wulf Luytens?"

"Yes he is a professor of German language; many of them learn it I think."

"He is a defector; watch him at full moon as he is also a werewolf. Do what you can to discredit him; otherwise kill him."

"Jahwohl. And see about my pay!"

"So" said Wulf "More or less what I expected. Should I fulfil expectations and disappear during the full moon or shall I confuse him more by being visible?"

"Let us have a moonlight party for the school with dancing outside; and you shall be there my friend" said Severus "Keep him confused. Unless of course he disappears off in a couple of days because he didn't get his danger pay for having to cope with Sirri and Ellie."

"I would like very much to DO something to this man" said David, flexing his fingers.

"Get in the queue" said Severus "And Jade too has a claim."

"Do you think he stays bought or do you think we should offer him more to tell lies?" suggested Erich "Just for, what does Lynx say, shits and giggles?"

"Not worth it brother mine" said Jade "We can make him report anything we want. Which, by the way, we need to decide on. Do we want them to think we're an innocuous English school filled with nuts and cranks or do we want him to think we have a huge army and uberwolves?"

"We want them to leave us alone until we're ready to be on the offensive for definite" said David "We need more information; Jade is willing to infiltrate but it will take time. There's a whole lot more than just the German branch, it's big in Russia too. We need to know if there are factions caused by that. But conversely we don't want them to think that we are helpless for the plucking even if we have nothing interesting like troops and werewolf-boosting factories."

"Germans are fond of melodrama" said Wulf "What about a mysterious masked figure arriving at the party and claiming to be the school protector?"

"Can't be done" said Jade "Half the girls from the original school worshipped dad slightly as he stood on the castle with his hair whipping romantically in the wind and covered in crawling bolts of energy looking every bit as melodramatic himself as Lucius Malfoy. They'd laugh at an outsider."

"They don't seem to have got the point about the ones of us with the lightening scar do they?" said Ellie. "I know, if they like melodrama, why not make like you've sent a projection of yourself like – like a brockenbow to his actual hideout and tell him we only want to run a school but that we're so hard he can break himself attacking us or leave us alone?"

"And how do I do that?"

"Well through feyspace I should think" said Ellie. "I didn't say necessarily SEND a projection but if you go there and then use glamour it would LOOK like you had."

"Brilliant" said Severus. "Where's he hole up?"

"Unless he has moved it he had a castle inside wizarding space inside the Teutenburgerwald" said Wulf.

Gerhard Grindelwald leaped backwards, seat and all, when the massive apparition of Severus Snape invaded his eating hall and pointed a finger at him.

"You become distressingly and disturbingly distasteful, little man" he said "Trying the petty expedient of informing the polizei about the wand-bearing elves and goblins in my school is completely beneath anyone who wants to be taken seriously. You have irritated my great aunt, and you have tried on several occasions to irritate me. You are coming close to succeeding. You don't read your mail that I send you; or you'd remember that those of us with the scar moved from irritation to distinctly peeved with the late Tom Riddle self-styled Lord Voldemort. Leave my school alone you fatuous and ineffectual little coward or I shall come and cane you. You are boring. I find your interference with English schools annoying. If you want to have an English-style school, then sack all the staff at Durmstrang and start again. But you won't succeed; you are not English and never will be. Your grandfather was part English and he almost had what it takes but you I fear will remain forever mentally German and therefore inherently inferior. Leave us alone. Do I make myself pellucidly clear?"

"Severus Snape?" the Prince gasped "But how…..?"

"That, I fear, is beyond the grasp of the amateur wizards your precious Durmstrang manages to turn out" the image of Severus sneered. "And this is why you cannot win if you spend every last one of your troops trying to defeat either MY school or Hogwarts; you haven't a clue how to do higher magics. You make yourself a laughing stock and nothing more with the pitiful amount you get out playing with your own small magic wand. And I asked you a question. I repeat it; Do I make myself clear?"

"You do" Gerhardt was shaking. The huge Brocken-ghost figure loomed menacingly.

"Good. Any more trouble and I shall take the time to punish YOU personally" said Severus; and vanished.

He waited in Feyspace with Wulf, their guide, Jade and Seag. Seag and Jade were dancing invisibly around Gerhardt, chanting silently.

They finished and returned to Severus' side.

"Now he is marked in feyspace; we can always find him" said Seag in Severus' ear.

Severus grinned savagely; it had been a refinement the fey boy had suggested.

Gerhardt was screaming to his aides,

"Find out how he did it, find out where he is, find out how it is done! I will not be taunted in my own retreat, how did he know where to find me? Find out, find out find out, why are you all still here?"

They exited quickly without a clue how to start following his instructions.

Save the controller of the spy.

He contacted Dunkelwald and demanded to know how long it was since Professor Snape had left the castle.

Dunkelwald stared.

"He has not left the castle."

"He must have done! Make excuse to go to his office, see what you can find there, pretend to knock and say you did not know he was out or something!"

"Teach your grandfather to brew beer! I know how to dissemble!"

Dunkelwald went to Snape's office and knocked.

"Hierin" said Severus.

Dunkelwald froze.

Fool of a Herzog, all that nobility had strained his brain!

He went in.

The head was sitting behind his desk working on correcting schoolwork.

"What can I do for you, Schmidt?" he asked pleasantly.

"Beg pardon sir, I thought I saw a figure breaking bounds" said Dunkewald.

"Are you sure? It's a stiff climb down the mountain without the car to take them" said Severus "Show me where."

Dunkelwald now had to make up a fleeting glance and find somewhere where he might have been mistaken.

"Well, thank you for your diligence, Schmidt" said Severus "I will have my wife do the rounds of the girls' dormitories and I shall do the boys just to double check. More likely to be one of our more colourful luminaries than a burglar, wouldn't you say?"

"No burglar in his right mind would tackle this pile" said Dunkelwald with heartfelt sincerity.

Why the Prince was interested in this potty little school in the back of beyond – Austria of all places, they were all hicks out here – was beyond him. There were no super werewolves, no storm wizards only some jumped up animals and some very boring kids with very little conversation outside of plants, caves, railways and embroidery. He was wasting his time and talents; and now he was wasting the chance to listen to a concert on the Germanic wireless network featuring Katti Krächzen and her band singing 'come and stir my cauldron hard' with her wonderful vibrato.

He contacted his controller.

"Herzog von Frettchen, I think that you are out of your mind also. The Headmaster was in his office was when I got there; and I went directly. He had had me all over the grounds seeking a runaway or intruder for I had to tell him something. He was not flushed, nor out of breath; he had a half-drunk cup of hot chocolate by him. If you have seen him elsewhere he has a doppelganger. Now good night to you!"

He might catch the last few minutes.

The announcer said,

"You have been listening to the incomparable Katti Krächzen; and now the news."

Dunkelwald turned off with unnecessary violence and threw his hat onto the floor.

It was too much!

The children were delighted to have a moonlight party – 'to lighten up a little and relax you before the exams' as Severus explained it – and they might dance or not as they chose in the yard, and eat exciting barbecue food, a muggle concept but declared delicious and bad for you by those in the know. The professors also cooked for the kitchen and outside staff – to the giggles of the house elves and the shock of Dunkelwald who had not thought they could be any more lost to shame until he saw the likes of Professor Snape and Professor Fraser in frilly pinnies and Professor Malfoy and Professor Granger in the severe black and white striped robes of waiters. All the children thought it was hilarious, and Rose Hubble had to have the _Apneo _ spell cast on her when a bit of burger went down the wrong way through her giggles over being called 'modom' by Professor Snape as she received her food hot from the barbeque.

And Professor Luytens was there too, wearing a frilly white pinny with an outsize bow on his ponytail and looking quite as ridiculous as any of them. In the moonlight.

So much for THAT piece of intelligence.

How could he though? How could any of them? It must destroy any respect the children had for them to see them looking so ridiculous!

Wherein Dunkelwald entirely missed the point that respect is not given for appearance but for substance; and that in showing themselves ready occasionally to horse around and make fools of themselves merely had then declared as good sports by the children!

"King Gama!" shouted Jade "Give us King Gama, sir!"

Severus laughed.

"Why not?" he said "So long as you lot do 'Modern Hogwarts Potioneer' for us and the 'Cauldron Monster Song'."

"That's a deal!" called Lynx "So long as Seag and Madam Snape give us 'Walking in the air'."

"I'll awa' get ma pipes afore ye all start" said Seag.

Severus started, when his son had returned,

"If you give me your attention I will tell you what I am….."

with those who were familiar with the song adding the part of chorus at the end of each verse 'and he can't think why!' and by the time he was explaining that

"I'm sure I'm no ascetic, I'm as pleasant as can be

And you'll always find me ready with a crushing repartee

I've an irritating chuckle, I've a celebrated sneer

I've an entertaining snigger I've a fascinating leer

To everybody's prejudice I know a thing or two

I can tell a woman's age in half a minute – and I do!

But although I try to make myself as pleasant as I can

Yet Everybody says I am a disagreeable man

And I can't THINK why"

"He can't think why – oh no alas he can't think why!" sang the chorus.

There was cheering; and the school fell about laughing.

"ENCORE!" yelled AHHa.

"Let the poor man get his breath" said Krait equably "He shall do you another presently. Marauders, the cauldron monster song?"

Grinning they complied.

That went down well too.

Then Krait and Seag did 'Walking in the air', appropriately doing so to the gasps of the pupils as they climbed invisible steps to the haunting strains of the song.

Even Dunkelwald was stunned by this. Madam Malfoy's voice soared without straining in a pure golden tone that had every listener holding their breath.

Many had tears in eyes that they could not take off her ethereal, tiny figure no taller than Sirri's half human form as she walked on through the air singing just for them.

There was a hush after that.

"Seag, give us Black Bear while we recover from mum's voice and then dad can do his encore" said Jade.

Seag was nothing loath.

Severus then was prevailed upon to sing the other major song of King Gama where he complains to his daughter the eponymous Princess Ida that he has been treated so unkindly in that people are NICE to him

"When e'e I poke sarcastic joke

replete with malice spiteful

this people mild politely smiled

and voted me delightful!"

His fan club roared out the chorus,

"Oh don't the days seem lank and long

when all goes right and nothing goes wrong

and isn't your life extremely flat

with nothing whatever to grumble at!"

Then the Marauders were on again to sing 'Modern Hogwarts Potioneer'

They then did an impromptu pastiche on 'Duke of Plaza Toro' and sang,

"In enterprise of martial kind when there was any fighting

he led StuurmZauberern from behind he found it less exciting

but when away his wizards ran his place was at the fore-o

that celebrated

cultivated

underrated nobleman

Prince Gerhard Grindelwald-o!"

There was laughter; and Dunkelwald almost BOILED!

Then Jade played her flute for Seag to harp to; and the dancing began to Scots and Irish jigs and reels.

And Wulf Luytens was still there, still human in the moonlight.

Filled with anger over so many things Dunkelwald slipped away to snarl at Herzog Von Frettchen.

"You are a fool!" he said "Professor Luytens is no werewolf! He's out in the yard dancing in the moonlight with the rest of the school at a silly party!"

"Are you sure it's really him not someone under polyjuice potion?"

"And I suppose they'd bother to bring in an extra person to do that? The lot of them are there! Anyway, won't the polyjuice potion make you change into the appearance of a werewolf too at that time of the moon? Because I have a feeling that it does, or to some horrible half-wolf form."

"You may be right" said Von Frettchen cautiously. "I shall run some tests next full moon. I don't understand it! I was certain it must be he! Tell me, I suppose there's no child that could be his daughter?"

"Irmi Luytens? Yes she's there singing scurrilous songs about the Prince as loud as any of them. And to think I thought she seemed a nice child."

"But how can this be? Irmi Luytens was BORN a werewolf!"

Dunkelwald shrugged.

"I don't know. Perhaps they have two ordinary people who have taken on the names in order better to hide their experimental studies – if such truly exist. I have seen no secure areas save the dungeons and they are empty; I went and looked. Professor Luytens has a tower room but if there were bars once there no longer are; and he has a latch on his side."

"You are very respectful in your address of the traitor – if it is he."

"Because, you idiot, I don't want to get caught out without using the proper tone of respectful servility" said Dunkelwald. "Have the sense to sound as though the only ferret you have is in your name not down your robes!"

"Be careful" said Von Frettchen dangerously.

"Or what? You'll recall me? Do, there's NOTHING HERE to investigate!"

It was frustrating for the Duke; nothing to investigate and yet Dunkelwald's reports had raised so many other questions! COULD Professor Snape really project an image of himself? What had happened to the real Wulf and Irmi Luytens? Von Frettchen was convinced that Dunkelwald had accidentally hit upon the truth with his almost flippant suggestion that they had been replaced by innocuous looking people to conceal the real werewolves. Maybe it really was just a school and the real facilities were elsewhere. The English always had to be so complex about things!

"Does he have a scar down his face and a missing left eye?" said Von Frettchen suddenly.

"He has a scar but he has two perfectly good eyes" said Dunkelwald.

This was because Jade had grown him another in a complex little ritual that had finished with a lot of kissing and giggling and so on.

Von Frettchen was not of course aware of this.

"AHA!" he said "He is then a plant, someone who has been scarred to appear right superficially. But Wulf Luytens is missing an eye and the socket too ruined for a false one"

which had caused Jade a bit of swearing to make room for a new one.

Dunkelwald nodded.

"They have the main facility elsewhere, I keep telling you" he said "And also I have heard no howling; and believe me, when I heard we were to be outside I wondered if it was to mask sounds INSIDE the castle and I poked around from towers to dungeons. Nothing."

"That was well done" said the Duke grudgingly. Dunkelwald WAS efficient; and it was worth putting up with his little foibles because of it. Besides, they had an understanding; had not Dunkelwald been a boy-drudge to him at Durmstrang? It had been where he had discovered the little rat's spying abilities after all! He added "Stay until the end of term; it is not so very long. Maybe you will learn something when the students have gone."

Dunkelwald shrugged.

"Maybe" he said. He did not sound as if he believed it!

AHHa and the wannabee marauders came to see Jade a day or two later.

"Jade, would you think we were being melodramatic if we said we thought that Herr Schmidt is a spy?"

"I'd want to listen to you reasons."

"Well apart from the fact that he's always sneaking around places and peering into cupboards and poking in the dungeons, which Julian says might just mean he's either a nosy parker or a thief" said AHHa "He was pretty off about the song you sang making fun of Gerhardt, 'cos we saw his face. And he doesn't like goblins and elves"

"I saw a look on his face when he looked at Professor Devlin that made me feel quite SICK!" said Sandalla

"He found out we were pure blood and asked us how we felt about goblins in the school" said Granville

"So we just kinda shrugged" said Albert "Even if we had cared one way or another, y'know it was none of his business; I mean, you might as well say how do you feel about having Scots in the school and then you say fine now I've learned that the people are Scots and the drink is Scotch so I don't get jinxed by Seag Snape any more because nobody likes to be made fun of even unintentional like so, well you know!"

"I know" said Jade, hiding a smile.

"And after the singing he slipped away so we followed him" said AHHa "And he'd shut his door but he was talking to someone though we couldn't hear what he said. So we started making a concerted effort to watch him."

"Oh?" said Jade, struggling with the concept of Herr Dunkelwald finding one of four little boys and a little girl every time he turned around.

They nodded emphatically.

"And we got the muggle marauders to help too 'cos they read books about how to shadow people" said AHHa seriously "And not having the same person behind him twice if he turns round."

Jade made a mental note to slip into feyspace to watch this; it would be better than a farce!

"And he's looking for secret doors too" said Julian "Pulling and pushing carvings and knobs whenever he can get an excuse to be indoors. And he asked Rose if there were many wolves up here on the mountain; and Rose, being Rose, thought about it and said that she had never seen any but it did not preclude the possibility but she would have thought she would have heard them howl lots and she's only heard them once or twice. And he asked her if it was on the night of the full moon and she no, it was before breakfast so it might have been big ones in the early morning running group mucking about. And wasn't that sensible of her not to say too much about the MSHG?"

"Oh Rose has her head screwed on the right way" said Jade "She may not be marauder material and she may be a disaster waiting to become a catastrophe but she's all there."

"Ca n I tell her you said that Jade?" asked Sandalla.

"Sure! And you can reassure her it was us actually, making the echoes sound."

"Will do. Why's he interested in wolves? D'you think he's waiting for some more werewolves to come and attack like they say happened last year?"

"Listen you kids" said Jade "Schmidt – which is not his real name but I shan't tell you what is in case you accidentally call him by it – is an Odessa spy and dad sussed him out pretty quick. But while he's here we know who their spy is, see? He is a dangerous man and if he felt you were a risk to him he would kill without a second thought. Now I'm not banning you from shadowing him; in fact I don't think it's a bad idea and I think you're smart to have picked up on him; but I DO want you to promise never to be alone following him, always have at least one other, preferably two in near proximity WHATEVER the circumstances; and if he goes off and one of you is alone and sees it, you go IMMEDIATELY to someone with a zig-zag scar or at least to one of the crowd I hang out with. Will you promise me that?"

They all nodded and chorused

"Yes, Jade!"

"That's good obedient troops. He's interested in wolves because dad developed a cure for werewolves; and we have a few in the school, including some who have run away from Odessa. And Odessa wants to know what happened to them; they're not very nice people so the idea of curing people doesn't spring first to their minds."

"Like Ulrich in the fourth?" said Julian.

"Like Ulrich in the fourth" said Jade. "And Professor Luytens and his daughter; and Tala in the fifth who was the first ever when she was really no older than you."

"Gosh" said AHHa "Being a wolf might be cool but you lose all your brains don't you?"

"Yes; and worse than that" said Jade "You lose all sense of any desire save to kill humans. Which could mean you come out of it and you've killed your best friend or someone you love like a family member; or worse, maimed them and made them what you are. It is a disease. If you think being a wolf with your mind intact is cool, work towards becoming animagi; lots of marauders are."

"Are you?"

"Yes. I'm registered as snake; but recently I've been wolf more often. It helps to run with people who have a furry little problem; and to help them cope with the still awakened instincts by giving them a wolf animagus form. Which was what Rose heard. But it was still us mucking about with the echoes for all that."

"They're nice people; are werewolves nice when they don't want to kill you then?" asked Granville.

"Werewolves are people. There are nice ones and nasty ones, dour ones and jolly ones, like anyone else" said Jade "Sometimes if they're a bit sour to start off with, being a werewolf embitters them totally; others rise to the challenge of improving themselves. Nice ones tend to be more likely to ask for help if they know it's available. In wolf form they're all nasty. You can force them back to human form – the spell is _homomorphous_ – but it hurts lots so they ain't going to be in the best mood when you've cast it. Odessa treat them like dirt but use them as shock troops. I can regret all the werewolves I've killed without stopping to ask 'excuse me are you nice in human form' but I would do the same thing over. Until I can develop a mass spell of _homomorphous_ that is. We decided the best policy with Schmidt by the way was to bellyache on about things he finds boring – like trains – so his eyes glaze over and he can't believe we have anything to hide."

"Do we?" asked Albert "Have things to hide?"

"Our cured werewolves I should think need keeping safe, shouldn't you?" said Jade. "No apart from that we have nothing to hide; but they find it difficult to accept that. So we need to bore them into going away and not troubling us again. But if you can spy on the spy too, I should think that would be pretty cool!"

And it would irritate him to the edges of his rapidly fraying sanity too, thought Jade viciously.

_Herzog is duke_

_heirin_ _is 'enter' _


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

It was indeed a treat to watch from feyspace the solemn five first years shadowing Lothar Dunkelwald.

They weren't doing too bad a job of it; and the muggle marauders a better one; but he WAS a professional after all and his senses were attuned to noticing being noticed.

It was however quite fascinating to watch his face and follow without even need of legilimensy the thoughts that wondered first if this was coincidence, then to progress to the realisation that they were watching him seriously and to wonder whether it was just a game, when overreacting would not be good; or whether it was something about him that they wanted to stare at, a jinx or hex someone had put on him that was fascinating enough to make small children peer fixedly at him then be rapidly engrossed in checking shoelaces or something when he turned around and to run away to be replaced by another small boy. Surely they could not have seriously worked out the truth about him? Little boys of eleven?

He had an uncomfortable feeling that they might.

Little boys of eleven were remarkably perspicacious.

It had been at such an age that he had himself made himself indispensable to Eduard Von Frettchen, then in the fifth form. Fagging was not institutionalised at Durmstrang, but older boys and girls of impeccable family often demanded – and got – the drudging services of younger ones; those of the best families had younger ones queuing up for the job as drudge, because though it was hard, often thankless and cut into homework time it could give incalculable interest in the future. Von Frettchen, heir to a dukedom, had had plenty of volunteers, but none so good at finding things out as young Dunkelwald. And his actual drudging duties had been light – he had picked another couple of boys to do that – he had passed on all he had learned. And Von Frettchen had been able to build up a network of people who owed him favours from it and had been duly grateful. It accounted for the loose way he let Dunkelwald talk to him; though it was never mentioned they were close to being friends, though of course Dunkelwald would feel no compunction over betraying Von Frettchen if it was in his best interests.

Successful causes were good to be involved in. Unsuccessful ones were to be stepped away from. Dunkelwald was wondering if it was time to step away from a cause led by an obsessive individual who was fixated on besting a ruddy schoolmaster. A snide, nasty tongued schoolmaster at that who looked at you as though he knew all your darkest and innermost secrets.

Had he set small children to spy?

Probably not.

If he had doubts about Herr Schmidt all he had to do was sack him.

He would not give children such power.

In this of course Dunkelwald was wrong; the only reason Severus drew back from using small children was their vulnerability. He too had every respect for their perspicacity!

Jade picked up a lot from almost unintentional legilimensy; Dunkelwald hid his emotions and body language but his thoughts roiled up in reaction and it was almost inevitable that she find things out.

She felt a brief pang of pity for Herzog Eduard Von Frettchen who might even be a sincere man with belief in his prince; and who almost certainly believed in the loyalty of this dodgy friend of his.

Well, when the chips were down, he would find out; and he might too find out before it was too late that the Prince was as sincere a friend as Dunkelwald.

Jade was not as preoccupied with exams as the years above and below her; her end of year exams were only a guide to how well she was doing. Save one.

Lucius Malfoy blew in with the usual examiner, some acidulated Ravenclaw type, Jade reckoned, named Madam Trewkettle and a second, male examiner with hair long enough to be untidy and a manner of trying to keep up with YOUTH. Jade disliked both on sight.

Lucius was to advise them on testing the practicals of the chanting exam though he would himself mark the written work, as was often done by experts in a particular field.

Jade had no qualms about either half.

The written paper asked for the definition of chanting and an explanation of where it differed from a more standard charm.

Jade wrote,

"If one might use the analogy of painting, a charm might be seen as a thick blob of paint, obviously producing the required colour but rather at risk of being chipped away and without any subtleties of shade. Chanting, on the other hand, is more akin to the old method of building up layer upon layer of thin paint, each layer affecting the perception of the layer underneath, giving a depth and subtle effect that cannot be duplicated in any other way. This effect too may be utilised in reverse; in stripping away, say, a curse, layer by layer rather than by risking additional adverse effects such as can accrue by attempting to neutralise a curse by more brute force means. A skilled chanter can feel the essence of the curse whilst chanting and change and tailor his or her chant to more effectively deal with the problem. The skilled chanter can hear the resonance and echoes from the very substance of the spell being broken. Equally laying a charm or curse with a chant gives the opportunity of many layers being introduced and such subtle effects as a time delay before a spell is released such as the mildly cursed replica diadem certain Hogwarts students used to drop a babbling curse on sundry Ravenclaws to begin at breakfast though it is doubtful anyone noticed the difference" she added snidely. It would amuse Lucius anyway.

There were also questions to ask on specific, long established chants; and several more questions postulating a situation and requesting the suggestion of a chant to fulfil the requirements of the situation. With explanations.

This was where knowing Gaelic and Latin so fluently came in handy.

And being a good arithmancer to decide how many 'legs' the chant ought to have. There was a lot to designing chants; one had to understand the construction of poetry to a higher level than most Ravenclaw poets did, as well as understanding the ancient languages of power that were the meat and drink of chanting, and the understanding of musical cadence and rhythm for where that became important.

And Jade was probably in the top ten in the world for understanding and practical application of chanting; her theory certainly surpassed Draco though he was a fine practical and instinctive chanter and capable of pulling off something fairly efficient on the fly.

Jade happily made arithmantic notes first then designed chants appropriately.

She finished well within the designated time, checked through her answers and sat back to await time to be called.

They were released at last.

"That was easy" said Seag to Jade.

"Wasn't it?" said Jade "Looking forward to the practical?"

"Huh, after the rather real practical we did year and a half back should be a cake walk" said Seag.

Eight hours of chanting had been rather challenging.

It had been as much as any of them could cope with.

The marauders and those who had been protégés of Severus all felt they had done well enough. So too did Sylvia Hubble and Esmerelda Jorkins.

The practical involved an hour long chant with ten minutes preparation to review the chant given and loosen the voice. They were to be tested in groups of four, at cardinal points in the great hall, the examiners listening to each voice and measuring its cadences.

"What a GIFT!" whispered Sylvia as she and Esmelda were drawn to go with Jade; she was certain that with Jade as an anchor it would lift their own game.

Less of a gift was having Rosamund Mandrake with them; Rosamund had an individualistic sense of timing.

It would be necessary to shut the ears to her and concentrate on Jade.

Jade took her place so that Rosamund was opposite her and one of the others on each hand; she liked Rosamund well enough but she did not want her pulling the others down.

Lucius counted them in; and Jade's young strong, trained voice rang out. Lucius murmured to the other two as he made a mark on a paper; presumably he was advising them on what to look for.

One of the things was stamina. An hour's solid chant was tough on anyone not used to it; and not easy even if you were. Fortunately it was an easy chant, a simple Latin protection spell.

By the time they had finished, five hour's worth with a large number of candidates, this circle in the great hall would be utterly impervious to ducks and geese.

Jade supposed Lucius had to come up with something innocuous and he could not exclude fey or Seag would be exempted.

It was easiest with a long chant to let yourself go almost into a trance where you became your own voice and let part of your mind rest aside from it.

Rosamund was running out of steam and faltering over words before the end; Sylvia and Esmerelda both had tired little voices.

Jade chanted on powerfully.

She would be glad when the time was up; but she could make herself continue without apparent flagging. And she did.

Lucius had to be away to test practical chanting next morning at Hogwarts where four students were taking the new OWL, Mei Chang, Godfrey Goodchild and Ross Tuthill in the fifth with their other OWLs, and Lionel Dell alongside his seven NEWTs. That at least would be a shorter session for Lucius to sit in on! The written exam had been taken at the same time as the Prince Peak students had and was in the hands of an invigilator; and Jade wished them luck, and sent a blood pulse to Mei.

Having some chanters in the second blood group was also good.

And Mei would know to pass Jade's good wishes to those two and also to Jade's friend Godfrey, whose parents had not let him move with her.

Jade despised the Goodchilds.

At least Godfrey had a music grant from Lucius and a visiting music teacher.

Seag reported that all his exams were a breeze except Comparative Magic, on account of having to carry it on by correspondence course and pestering Ellie occasionally.

Most of the rest declared the Potions practical a veritable pig being the brewing of three very different potions from memory, each one short and easy to make but with all the ingredients laid out not by potion but in alphabetical order several people reckoned their minds went blank. Seag murmured something about this being different to normal how and got shouted at.

They had all had almost a full two years study; and the lowest number of OWLs being attempted was seven by four of the class; and the highest was eleven, which was Seag. Tala and Angelica were taking ten; and the rest either eight or nine.

It was a better average than ever before in the school and Madam Trewkettle was amazed and hoped – rather snidely – that Severus was not encouraging them to overreach themselves.

"Well you will have to judge that by yourself, will you not?" said Severus. "I'm not expecting the grades they'd have got if they had had all this time at Hogwarts; but at least they get a broader education base and we are being flexible about negotiating NEWTs based on how hard they have worked more than on results; as I have occasionally done at Hogwarts too in exceptional circumstances."

"I heard that the exceptional circumstance was one you were boffing" said Madam Trewkettle.

"Not, however, at the time" said Severus "Her hard work after the tragic circumstances of the rape she suffered at fourteen that led to her low grades brought her close to my wives and me; and ultimately she joined our household. And I only bother to tell you rather than withering you with a look because I don't want you spreading poison about her. I accepted her low grade in the light of how well she was working after I had discovered where the problem lay. It's not easy to have a baby when you're only fifteen and that the result of a creep who forces himself on you; I think she did exceptionally well to go on to take four NEWTs at good grades."

Trewkettle flushed.

"That must have been extremely tough for her" she said. "I didn't know you had that much sympathy in you, Severus."

"There's probably a lot of things about me that you don't know" said Severus "Generally I like to keep it that way."

Madam Trewkettle was also pleasantly surprised by the number of NEWTs being taken. The one boy was attempting six; but two girls were going for five, one for four and two for three.

The two ambitious girls were Katarina, taking the maximum permitted at Durmstrang, and Hilda Hubble who had blossomed under good teaching. Katarina was in many ways the class star; though Edward was taking one more subject than she, it was generally reckoned that she was the better student. He outshone her in Charms and they vied with each other in Arithmancy; but otherwise Katarina sat ahead of him.

Edward of course had the opportunity to sit an exam of DADA; which Katarina had not studied and despised the idea of studying Dark Arts as such.

Jade planned to for her year at Durmstrang, as local colour and to use the study to make up more counters to any dark arts they learned.

The Potions Practical was the draught of living death; and only Katarina's turned out a light shade of lilac. Edward's at least was a lightish purple as was Hilda's; the others completed it with more or less purply shades and no sludge which was as Morgana said in relief was better than she might have hoped.

The written exam covered everlasting elixirs and Golapott's laws in the main which Katarina declared a beautiful paper and earned herself thereby several hard stares.

Charms, Transfigurations and Enchanting were all considered to be 'all right' to 'quite fun' by various students except Morgana who managed to turn the examiner into a fiddle.

Severus rescued Madam Trewkettle and took her away to get herself back to a reasonable level of sangfroid before she was to tackle those who came after 'Fairchild' in the alphabet which was all but Edward.

Morgana was run to earth sobbing in the loo by Krait who told her she should apologise to Madam Trewkettle on general principles of courtesy but that it was only the end of the world if she had already mucked up the written as she could still achieve a pass grade if she did well enough.

Morgana knew she had not and sobbed afresh.

"Look, no harm done; Professor Snape unfiddled the examiner" said Krait and then had to breathe deeply not to giggle at her own description "You can always re-take as an external next year. And you have three others you are taking; that's a good average. Professor Fraser's examiner almost got EATEN; he let his mind drift and turned his fiddle into a Bengal Tiger of all things!"

"Did he fail?"

"No….fortunately the examiner both liked tigers and had a sense of humour. But these things happen. I was the first to disconcert them by refusing to turn my cat back on humanitarian grounds. Most Hogwarts kids do now."

"Oh!" said Morgana who had never considered it.

Krait disliked Morgana; but she was still a child in her care after all.

Hilda, Katarina and Amy were the others taking transfigurations and the first two at least performed with panache, summoning flowers and turning their fiddles into a Siamese and a Persian cat respectively. Amy's cat had a curly tail that resembled rather too closely the end of the fiddle stock but she got through the test.

She had only Divination to go, which she was taking as a softish option.

She did however create a sensation when she leaped up over the crystal ball and shrieked that the gardener was trying to murder Professor Luytens.

Jade already knew and had apparated directly to Wulf's room the moment he exuded concern, rapidly joined by other blood group members.

They were staring at each other, wands out.

"So" Dunkelwald was saying "Where is the real Wulf Luytens?"

Jade, who had a sense of the dramatic growled, as she arrived

"Behind you!" as she changed into wolf.

He could not tell the difference between werewolf and real wolf; and he screamed as Jade leaped.

She cast a combination of the jellied furnunculus curse, avocado kedavra and the full body bind as she leaped.

Bound, green and covered with wriggling tentacles it was up to Severus to decide what to do; and she shimmered back into her own form to hug Wulf as the others arrived just seconds behind her.

Severus regarded Dunkelwald.

"Hmm" he said "WHAT am I going to do with you? Azkaban for attempted murder? Let you run and hope the natural wolves of the peak do my job for me? Hang you? No, I know."

He released the man from all the curses; regarded him for a moment and started chanting.

Jade and Seag and Krait roared with laughter and joined in, dancing around him as they did so.

The man shrank as they chanted, and changed proportions, his clothes falling away from him as he turned into a house elf.

He shrieked.

"I will be turned back and then you'll see!" he squeaked.

"No actually I doubt anyone can" said Severus "You just got hit by a chanted curse by four of the greatest chanters alive today; it having been a dying art I revived. Durmstrang graduates can make chanted curses; which they learn more or less by rote, but I doubt they can uncurse you. Not with the layers and twiddly bits my wife and two of my children added."

"Twiddly bits; technical term for twiddly bits" murmured Krait. "Don't say it Hermione."

"I was only going to remark that one rarely sees Severus at a loss for sesquipedalian and verbose descriptive periods" said Hermione mildly.

"And now" said Severus "Come with me" and he seized the wriggling elf that suddenly complied, with a look of horror on his face.

"Lumme" said Ron "He's still got the compulsions, hasn't he?"

"Not feeling sorry for him are you?" asked Jade.

"No, just shocked that Severus would…."

"No control" said Jade "That's the true-form of house-elf here; didn't you hear the Finnish we stuffed in to make it true-name controlled?"

"Are you sure SHE's not the Quidsats Haddarach taken over from Harry?" said Ron.

"No; I'm Allia and darker like her too" said Jade "Only I have the strength to fight it."

Severus did an elf-style apparation to the feyspace tag; and dropped the elf in front of Gerhardt.

"Your murderous little spy" he said "And for that….." he summoned a switch into his hand and advanced on the astonished Prince and started to lay about him with the stinging ferrule.

Gerhardt whinnied with fear and his bodyguard let fly with wands at Severus.

He was expecting the attack; and smiled grimly that all went for the killing curse.

One of which only narrowly missed the writhing Gerhardt.

The Prince's look said THAT one was in for a hard time.

Severus ignored it as the rest of the group dissipated it for him.

"There; six of the best for a very naughty boy" said Severus "I warned you!" and he apparated away, creeping back in feyspace.

There was hubbub.

Gerhardt felt a need to assert himself and see someone else in pain; the wizard who had nearly killed him writhed under the cruciatus curse.

"WHAT IS THIS DAMNED ELF?" roared Gerhardt.

All his aides, naturally, denied knowledge.

"I'm not really an elf he turned me into one, I'm Lothar Dunkelwald!" squealed the elf.

"Oh? I don't think I believe that" said Herzog Von Frettchen.

"I am! Eduard, they used chanting and Finnish naming something!" said Dunkelwald.

"Get him mandragora potion; that'll show if he's telling the truth or not" said Von Frettchen.

Severus grinned.

"Not with THAT combination of curses old boy; only if it's brewed using his own true name" he said.

But he said it to himself.

Back at school it was almost anticlimactic with the two who were taking the DADA exams to go.

It was the practical that would drop the marks of both; Edward manfully resisted the imperius curse and got a protection up to the cruciatus curse; Hilda had more trouble.

But they did not have the range and variety of corridor curses either that they had learned to resist or to cast that a Hogwarts' student would have; seven years of train journeys and inter house rivalries honed the duelling instincts wonderfully!

And the train journey at least should start to emerge as a tradition for Prince Peak.

They needed a duelling club to replace inter house rivalry thought Severus.

It would give them more chance too against outside incursion.

And then it was the end of another year; and a last night feast and making sure they all got on the train with everything they were supposed to have and nothing they were not supposed to have.

Which was accomplished even for Rose Hubble.

The Marauders would take Sandalla home to Zorn and next year she would apparate directly to the train station in the care of an elf.

It had been a busy year; but then, that was the way of schools.

Never a dull moment!

**The end of another year! I can't handle the next two at once so I'll pick which one should go first... I believe the consensus is on the Hogwarts story  
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